^472. 
 
TRANSACTIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER GOETHE SOCIETY, 
 
 Q 
 
 1886-1893. 
 
 BEING ORIGINAL PAPERS AND SUMMARIES OF PAPERS 
 READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 A CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE OF THE SOCIETY'S LIBRARY. 
 
 ,«'«•• v • 
 
 FRINTEB FOR THE SOCIETY BT 
 MACKIE & CO., LIMITED, WARKINGTON. 
 
 1894. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Manchester Groethe Society was founded in 1886 in 
 connexion with the English Goethe Society, and through it with 
 the Weimar Groethe Gresellschaft, the opening meeting being 
 held at the Schiller Anstalt in October of that year. Several of 
 the addresses and papers read before the Society were printed in 
 the Proceedings of the English Society, viz.. Paper ii. in Vol. ii.; 
 Paper xi. in Vol. IV.; Papers vi., xii., xix., and xxii. in Vol. v. ; 
 and Papers xxi., xxv., and xxviii. in Vol. vi. When, in 1891, 
 the re-constructed English Groethe Society formally enlarged its 
 scope, and substituted " The Work and Thought of Groethe and his 
 Literary Contemporaries " for " Goethe's Work and Thought," 
 the Manchester Society was unable to agree to the change. In 
 1893 it was determined to print and distribute to the members 
 a volume containing ( 1 ) summaries of all the papers read before 
 the Society; (2) a small selection of papers printed in full, to 
 which were added two on Goethe's Views on Education which 
 were being printed for other purposes ; (3) a catalogue of the 
 contents of the Society's library, which is housed in the Owens 
 College. This volume will, it is hoped, give an outline of the 
 literary w^ork of the Society, and illustrate the fact that the 
 study of Goethe's work and thought is, so far from being 
 exhausted, really only just beginning in this country. Besides 
 this literary work the Society has, on its open nights, given 
 musical renderings of Goethe's poetry, and on one occasion 
 tableaux from his works. 
 
 663039 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 \—OEIGINAL PAPERS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1.— GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A 1 
 
 2.— GOETHE AND FRAU v. STEIN. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A 21 
 
 3.— GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 By Dr. A. W. Ward 48 
 
 4.— GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 
 
 By Dr. A. S. Wilkins 63 
 
 5.— GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 By Mr. H. Preisinger 77 
 
 6— SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. I. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, MA 90 
 
 7.— SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. II. 104 
 By the Rev. F. F, Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Note to Goethe. Burger, and Mullner 121 
 
 II.— ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS READ BEFORE THE MANCHESTER 
 GOETHE SOCIETY, 1886-1893. 
 
 I. — Opening Addi-ess, by Dr. A. W. Ward . . . . 123 
 
 II. — Goethe and Calderon, by Dr. C. H. Herford . . . . 125 
 
 III. — Goethe and Homer, by Dr. Herman Hager . . . . 126 
 
 IV. — The Jive best English Translations of Faust, by R. 
 
 McLintock " 127 
 
 V. — Wilhelm Meister and the JRomantic Novelists, by Mrs. 
 
 Sidgwick 128 
 
 VI. — Goethe as a Botanist, by Professor WilHamson . . 129 
 
 VII. — The Friendship of Goethe and Schiller, by Professor 
 
 E. Dowden * 131 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS, ^e,— continued. 
 
 VIII. — Faust and Wilhelm Meister considered as works typical 
 
 of Goethe, by Mr. H. Preisinger 132 
 
 JX.— Goethe's Werther, by the Rev. Ph. Quenzer . . . . 133 
 
 X.—A. F. Freiherr v. Lorn, by Mr. G. Schelling . . . . 134 
 
 XI. — The Erdgeist in the Faust Fragment, by the Rev. 
 
 F. F. Cornish, M.A . . 136 
 
 XII. — Goethe's Theory of Colour, by Dr. Arthur Schuster . . 137 
 
 XIIIa. — Friedrich Theodor v. Vischtr, by Prof. Lobenhoffer . . 138 
 
 XniB. — Critical Remarks on the Prologue in Heaven, by F. T. v. 
 
 Vischer 139 
 
 XIY.— Goethe's Iphigenie, by Dr. A. S. Wilkins . . . . 140 
 
 XV. — Jos. Charles Hellish, by Dr. Kuno Meyer . . . . 140 
 
 XVI. —Ow the ''Urfaust;' by Mr. H. Preisinger . . . . 142 
 
 XVII. — Goethe as a Student of Chemistry, by Dr. G. H. Bailey 142 
 
 XVIIL — Herder and Goethe in Strashurg, by Miss Gaifron . . 144 
 
 XIX. -^. P. Moritz, by the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. . . 145 
 
 XX. — Goethe as a War Correspondent, by Mr. H. Spencer 
 
 Wilkinson 146 
 
 XXI.— Ow Goethe's Epics, by Dr. C. H. Herford . . . . 147 
 
 XXII. — Goethe and the Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen, by the 
 
 Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A . . . . 149 
 
 XXm. — Goethe's Delineation of Womanhood, by Mrs. A. . C. 
 
 Williamson . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 
 
 XXIV. — Goethe in Leipzig, hy Dt. Kuno Mejei. . .. .. 153 
 
 XXV. — Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea, by Dr. C. H. Herford 154 
 
 XXVI. — Count William of Schaumburg-Lippe, by Dr. A. W. 
 
 Ward 155 
 
 XXVII. — Goethe and Jteligion, by the Rev. L. M. Simmons, 
 
 B.A., LL.B 156 
 
 XXVIII.— DerjMw^e Goethe, by the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. . . 157 
 
 XXIX — William Taylor, of Noricich, by Mr. John Finlayson 158 
 
 XXX. — William Taylor as a Translator, by Mr. H. Preisinger 160 
 
 XXXI. — The Letters of Goethe's Mother to her Son, to Christiane 
 
 and August v. Goethe, by Miss Marie Liebert . . 161 
 
CONTENTS. Vii 
 
 PAGB. 
 
 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS, ^'C— continued. 
 
 XXXII.— Goethe s Life at Weimar, 1775-1786, by the Rev. F. 
 
 F. Cornish, M.A 163 
 
 XXXIII. — On Goethe's Plan for the Helena, by Dr. Herman 
 
 Hager 163 
 
 XXXIV.— Ow Goethe, Burger, and Milliner, by Dr. A. W, Ward 164 
 
 XXXV. — On some aspects of Goethe's Egmont, by Dr. A. W. 
 
 Ward 164 
 
 XXXVI. — Goethe and Frau v. Stein, by the Rev. F. F, Cornish, 
 
 M.A 166 
 
 XXXVII. — The Literary Influence of Goethe's Faust in England, 
 1832-1852, ^oith special reference to P. J. Bailey's 
 Festus, by Mr. James Tait, M.A 167 
 
 XXXVIII. — Torquato Tasso in its relation to Goethe^ s early life at 
 Weimar and his Italian Journey. 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A 169 
 
 IL^^TK,— Matthew Arnold on Goethe, by Mr. H. Preisinger . . 171 
 
 XL. — Some of Goethe's views on education, I. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A 173 
 
 XLI. — On the necessity of a standard English translation of 
 
 Goethe's prose ivories, by Dr. Kuno Meyer . , . . 173 
 
 XLII. — So77ie of Goethe's vieivs on education, II. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A 174 
 
 ^IA11.~ Goethe and Addison, by the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 175 
 
 XLIV. — Goethe and Servian Folk-Song, by Mr. H. Preisinger. . 176 
 
 IL'L'Sf.— Goethe and Lavater, by the Rev. H. H. Snell, M.A.. . 177 
 
 XLVI.— G^oe^e in Sicily, by Mr. C. E. Tyrer, M.A 179 
 
 III.— SHORT NOTES READ AT THE MEETINGS OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER GOETHE SOCIETY, 1886-1893 .. .. 181 
 
 IV.— CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER GOETHE SOCIETY, 1893 183 
 
 v.— INDEX OF AUTHORS IN THE CATALOGUE 210 
 
TEANSACTIONS OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER GOETHE SOCIETY. 
 
 I.— REPRINTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 i ^ i \ ■'■>-' ' 3 
 
 o ., » ,c J * , 
 
 1.— GOETHFS WEIMAR LIFK '\r^>^.-^ 
 1775-1786. ','.^''"-^, ^'^ .-"^ 
 
 By the rev. F. F. CORNISH. 
 
 Paper read 5th November, 1890. 
 
 In a former paper which I read before you I gave some of the- 
 results of a study of Groethe's letters and early works up to the 
 date of his reaching Weimar in 1775. Since then I have been 
 reading his letters of the early Weimar years, the greater part 
 of which were written to the P'rau von Stein, and intend at a 
 later date to read a paper founded upon them. But I dis- 
 covered that before one could do so in a satisfactory way there 
 are certain points which require to be cleared up, at all events 
 here in England, where lives of Goethe and writings upon Groethe 
 as a rule take for granted the accuracy of Mr. Lewes's biography 
 as giving a true picture of Weimar, its Court and social life, and 
 a correct estimate of Goethe's relations to the Frau von Stein. 
 Intending as I do to assume upon these points a view at 
 variance with Mr. Lewes's, I considered that in a paper which will 
 have to deal with subject-matters of considerable extent 
 it would be strategically a mistake to proceed whilst such 
 formidable foes were left at large in the rear. Without sug- 
 gesting that Mr. Lewes did anything but try to arrive at the 
 truth of the matter, I would say that in the first place when he 
 wrote Goethe was, so to say,under the shadow ot his own life, and 
 of his own works. That is people's idea of him was unduly 
 dominated by the fact that — (1) he had defied public opinion 
 in the matter of his union with Christiane, and (2) had in 
 
*i GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 Wilhelm Meister written a work in which a large number of 
 people are represented as living, as someone described it, much 
 the life of a collection of tame animals, and no hint is forth- 
 coming of any reprobation of their morals on his part ; in the 
 next place that he had written the Roman Elegies, and lastly had 
 in the Elective Affinities treated of the moral relations of life in a 
 manner which seemed to play fast and loose with the very 
 foundations of what we hold most precious. 
 
 To treat of the second point first, I would in the first place 
 • • ,'<say that m^.rfiading of Goethe's letters has forced upon me the 
 < ''KJonoliiSidn.' 'tliat'just as I believe his 20th year, when his wild 
 I : •..•Irfje.a^-'J^piprdQ'.alniost killed him, was one of the moral turning 
 ' •' • points of* his ii'fe, 60 his visit to Rome was also a turning point, 
 the effect of which may be not inaptly symbolised by Faust's 
 visit to the Witches' Kitchen. Goethe in his first twelve years 
 at Weimar was the author of Tasso and Iphigenie, in his 
 second ten years after his return from Italy of Wilhelm Meister's 
 Apprenticeship in its present form, and of the Roman Elegies. 
 The very turning point is marked in his letter written from 
 Rome to Karl August of February 16, 1788. " You write quite 
 convincingly that one must have a cervello tosto " (which 
 Hempel's editor translates by dilrres Gehirn) " if he is not 
 enticed into the beautiful flower garden. It appears that 
 your excellent thoughts of the 22nd of January had an immedi- 
 ate effect in Rome, for by that date I could have recounted 
 several charming excursions. Thus much is certain, and you as 
 a doctor of the widest experience (^doctor longe peritissimus) 
 are quite correct in saying that such a moderate exercise 
 refreshes the mind and brings the body into a precious equili- 
 brium. An effect which I have experienced more than once in 
 my life, as I have on the other hand noted the discomfort which 
 resulted when I tried to withdraw from the bread road into the 
 straight path of self-restraint and security." 
 
 In 1 825 Goethe was talking over some of his own works with 
 Eckermann {Gesp,, v., 265), and the conversation turned 
 upon Wilhebn Meister, "There are odd critics in this 
 world," said Goethe. "They blamed me for letting the 
 hero of this novel live so much in bad company; but by 
 this very circumstance, that I considered this so-called bad 
 
Goethe's weimar life. 3 
 
 company as a vase into which I could put everything I had to say 
 about good society, I gained a poetical body and a varied one into 
 the bargain. Had I on the contrary delineated good society by 
 the so-called good society, nobody could have read the book." 
 Mr. Hay ward quotes this extract (Life of Goethe, p. 176) in a 
 strangely blundering fashion, and adds " May not the Bohemian 
 habits of his own youth have had something to do with his 
 letting Wilhelm live so much in bad company ?" and in a pre- 
 vious page (174). speaking of Groethe's management of the 
 amateur theatre at Weimar, he had remarked " There can be 
 little doubt that his high born friends, during their nocturnal 
 open air representations, were occasionally as regardless of 
 ceremony as the strollers in Hogarth's well-known engraving ; 
 and he has obviously drawn freely on their remembered irregu 
 iarities in the first part of his romance." 
 
 In the life of an author who drew, as Goethe confessedly did, 
 so much upon his own experience, this arguing backwards from 
 the writings to the life is, especially before the materials for writing 
 the life truly are at hand, quite natural ; but we have got past 
 the stage at which in Goethe's case it is permissible, especially in 
 the vague sweeping form adopted by Mr. Hay ward. Mr. Lewes 
 •did good service in examining and rejecting some of the similar 
 stories about Goethe, e.g., that which originated with Eiemer 
 and connected his name with Corona Schroter. Scholl had 
 shown that this story was very improbable, and Mr. Lewes says 
 {p. 205) " I not only agree with Scholl's reasoning,but can corrobo- 
 rate it by the testimony of the Frau von Goethe, who assured me 
 me her father-in-law expressly and emphatically told her that he 
 had never had a passion for any actress." To this we may add 
 Goethe's declaration to Eckermann in 1825 (Gesp., v., 
 156): "At our theatre there was no want of ladies, 
 who were beautiful and young, and who were pos- 
 sessed of great mental charms. I felt a passionate inclina- 
 tion towards many of them, and sometimes it happened 
 that I was met half way. But 1 restrained myself, and said, no 
 further I I knew my position, and also what I owed to it. I 
 stood here not as a private man, but as chief of an establishment 
 the prosperity of which w^as of more consequence to me than a 
 momentary gratification. If I had involved myself in any love 
 
4 Goethe's weimar life. 
 
 affair, I should have been like a compass which cannot point 
 light when under the influence of a magnet at its side. By thus 
 keeping myself quite clear, and always remaining master of 
 myself, 1 also remained master of the theatre, and I always 
 received that proper respect without which all authority is very 
 soon at an end." 
 
 " The Bohemian habits of Groethe's own youth " is a phrase 
 which begs the whole question and which provokes the enquiry as 
 to what particular part of his life is referred to. We saw in a pre- 
 vious paper how Goethe's outbreak at Leipsic had ended in an 
 illness which almost proved mortal, and this perhaps was the inci^ 
 dent which suggested a like termination to Wilhelm's adventure 
 with Marianne. I may be fanciful in thinking that the expres- 
 sion used in a letter from Leipsic when he re-visited it ten 
 years later, " Nothing remains but that which had the purest, 
 possible relations to me," might have accompanied a sigh of 
 relief which he drew on finding that no Gretchen tragedy had 
 taken place, no Felix had been cast upon the world as a conse- 
 quence of his fault. Jn Stella's monologue which he composed 
 on that day the essence is contained in the words of tJie deserted 
 wife (Z>. /. G., iii., 676): " You had the heart to pluck the 
 flower of my innocence, my happiness, my life, just as a pastime 
 and tear it in pieces and strew it thoughtlessly on your path." 
 We may well admit that the tone of Wilhelm Meister as it was 
 published is the result of the time which he spent at Eome in 
 1788. 
 
 As to the moral state of the society in which Goethe moved 
 before going to Weimar, I would say that from all the indica- 
 tions that we get, it must have been essentially sound, though 
 Goethe, as he said, got glimpses into the seamy side of things, 
 which so far affected his imagination as to produce the Mit^ 
 schuldigen (Accomplices). Apart from his grand passions,, 
 his experience of the ladies was very much what he described as 
 " that of thousands." Moving amongst the dear creatures, he 
 sometimes amused, sometimes bored them, and kissed them 
 when he got the chance. No doubt the distinction which 
 crops up in Glavigo was generally made. Clavigo is talking with 
 Carlos (D. J, G., iii., 377) of his ambition. " I should be 
 nothing," he says, "if I stopped at what I am! Higher I 
 
GOETHE S WEIMAR LIFE. 5 
 
 Higher ! and this requires toil and craft. A man wants his 
 whole head, and the women, the women! one trifles away far too 
 much time with them." To which Carlos replies, " Fool, that is 
 your own fault. I cannot live without women, and yet they are no 
 hindrance whatever to me. Nor do I say so many fine things to 
 them, or roast (roste) myself for whole months on sentimentali- 
 ties and such like. And this is why I am very unwilling to 
 have anything to do with respectable girls. One soon comes to 
 the end of what one has to say, and then one trails them about 
 after one so long, and no sooner are they a bit taken with one than 
 there is the deuce to pay with their marriage plans and proposals 
 which I dread like the plague." 
 
 A glimpse which letters of Groethe's mother give us into Frank- 
 fort life at a later date shows us people approving and disapprov- 
 ing very much like ourselves. She begins with an amusing 
 tale of how Henrietta Schlosser received a proposal of marriage 
 from Professor Breier which she declined. He again returned 
 to the charge and was accepted. All arrangements were made, 
 furniture packed, and the empty chambers looked just as if it 
 had been the destruction of Jerusalem, when the lady's dislike 
 revived, and she changed again. " Is it not a droll story?" asks 
 Frau Aja. " For my part, I ascribe a heap of follies which have 
 happened one after another to the astonishing heat — in Rome 
 60 men have gone off their heads, but certainly it is not so bad 
 with us, but who would compare Rome and P'rankfort ! ! ! Herr 
 Greheimrath von Grerning has had a spiritual courtship with a 
 sentimental widow, engaged himself to her, is asked in church 
 as the custom is, but as soon as ever the word marriage is 
 mentioned he faints away. They parted from one another in 
 peace, &c. Miss Busman, granddaughter of Mrs. Bethmann 
 Schafif, was engaged to be married, but as they had a bit to 
 wait, she was faithless to her bridegroom. The heat is the 
 whole and sole cause of it all, for if they had been 
 bad people it would have been another matter, but here 
 they are one and all noble souls who chatter about principles — 
 duties — moral exercises of duty towards parents, relations, <i:c. 
 This is what I admire in the IStock household. There the 
 parents love the children, the children the parents. There they 
 are so comfortable that each member of the circle enjoys its 
 
6 GOETHE S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 life." {Sch, d G.G., iv., 320). I may add that, where as in the 
 case of Merck the family life was broken up, the circumstance 
 was not by any means looked upon as a matter of course. 
 
 The person who would have been most surprised to learn that 
 Wilhelm's bad company and the moral indifference which mark 
 that work were the reflection of Goethe's Weimar life would 
 have been the Frau von Stein. On receiving the last volume in 
 September, 1796, several years after their rupture, she wrote to 
 her son Fritz, " There are fine thoughts in it here and there,, 
 especially on the political relations of life, and it begins with a 
 feeling such as I no longer thought Groethe, as a complete son 
 of this earth, capable of. But I think, too, that it dates from 
 past years. Moreover, all the women that he introduces are of 
 unseemly behaviour, and wherever he has from time to time let 
 noble feelings come into play in human nature, he has smeared 
 them all with a little dirt in order to leave nothing heavenly in 
 the nature of man. The effect is continually as if the Devil 
 were admonishing one not to be misled in one's feelings, and 
 think them any better than they are." 
 
 Writing in 1801 to Fritz when Groethe was bringing forward 
 Christiane in society she said, '* Strongly as my heart draws me 
 towards this old friend, yet one needs always to hold a little 
 aloof from him. It was his way of old, without in the least 
 intending it, to land one in the dirt." No one who reads the 
 letters of the time can, I think, doubt that in the persons of 
 Iphigenie and the Princess in Tasso, Groethe was drawing from 
 life, and aimed at dramatising her character and influence upon 
 him, and yet, anyone who reads Mr. Lewes's Life would certainly 
 not have this fact obtruded on his notice, for it is almost 
 ignored, and we are left with a picture of her as a Court lady 
 who in a society which was as corrupt as the Court of Louis XV., 
 only with a difference, was no better than the rest. 
 
 But to return to Mr. Lf^wes. In connexion with the low 
 state of society he quotes Goethe's saying to Eckermann that 
 his first years at Weimar were '- perplexed with love affairs," and 
 names two other charmers besides Corona whom he was said to 
 have admired, but adds " I am bound to say that after the most 
 diligent inquiry I can find no reliable evidence for believing any 
 one of those named to have been really loved by him." 
 
GOETHE S WEIMAR LIFE. 7 
 
 And yet perhaps, with all his efforts to be fair, Mr. Lewes has 
 done more than any other writer to give currency to an estimate 
 of the morality of Court life at Weimar which is not borne out 
 by the evideuce, and this is founded almost wholly upon the tes- 
 timony of '' poor, simple, earnest Schiller," as he calls him. 
 " Schiller," he says,"was astounded at the condition of women at 
 Weimar. ' There is hardly one of them,' he writes to Korner 
 ' who has not had a liaison. They are all coquettes. 
 One may very easily fall into an " affair of the heart " though it 
 will not last any time.' " Mr. Hayward follows suit. " The 
 morals of the Weimar circle were the opposite of straitlaced : 
 Schiller wrote to Kornf^r that the ladies were all of them 
 coquettes — that there was hardly one of them who had not had 
 a liaison ; and he adds '* there is no want of charity in suppos- 
 ing that, in their theatrical expeditions, the intrigue was not 
 uniformly confined to the stage." The same words are also 
 copied verbatim in a series of letters on German home life 
 which appeared some years since in Fraser's Magazine and ran 
 through two editions when reprinted. 
 
 Skjhiller came to Weimar in the summer of 1787 whilst 
 Goethe was in Italy, and wrote an account of what he saw and 
 heard to Korner, at Dresden. His most intimate friend at 
 Weimar, and the one from whom he must have got his informa- 
 tion, was Frau von Kalb, towards whom he stood in a relation of 
 intimacy not unlike that of Goethe to Frau von Stein. On 
 August 12th, he writes that he has on that day had "to take a 
 very weary walk with a large party of the nobility {in grosser 
 (idliger Gesellschaft), and how many insipid creatures one comes 
 across. The best of all was the Frau von Stein, a truly unique 
 interesting person, and one to whom,as I understand,Goethe has 
 quite attached himself. Beautiful she can never have been, but 
 her countenance has a mild earnestness and a quite peculiar 
 openness. A sound understanding, feeling and truth are of the 
 very essence of her being. This lady possesses perhaps more 
 than a thousand letters from Goethe, and he has continued to 
 write to her weekly from Italy. They say that their connexion 
 is quite pure and blameless " {Man sagt, dass ihr Umgavg 
 ganz rein und untadelhaft sein soil). 
 
 That Schiller was quite prepared to accept the possibility of 
 
8 Goethe's weimar life. 
 
 such a state of things we may well believe, when we read what 
 he writes on the 18th, respecting von Kalb, the husband of his 
 own fiiend Charlotte. " Herr von Kalb has written to me. He 
 is coming at the end of September ; his arrival will determine 
 my further plans. His friendship for me is unchanged, which 
 is to be wondered at, since he loves his wife and knows my rela- 
 tion to her. But his reasonableness and strength of mind may 
 perhaps be put to a severe test when he comes, what with the 
 interference of outsiders and an officious scandalmongering. I 
 mean, that is, in relation to public opinion, for his confidence in 
 his wife will never waver." That Charlotte's testimony was not 
 to be trusted we know from Schiller's express words, •' Char- 
 lotte has already frequently given me false information " {hat 
 Tnir schon oft falsche Nachrichten gegeben). And yet it is 
 upon the testimony of this simple-minded man, informed by 
 this misleading woman, that we are asked to rely in forming 
 our initial estimate of the moral state of the women of Weimar. 
 But let us see what that testimony amounts to. Schiller 
 approaches everything in the tentative spirit with which a man 
 not quite at his ease enters a new world. He visits the 
 Dowager Duchess, and says that she has not made a conquest of 
 him {Sie selbst hat mich nicht erobert) though Wieland 
 assures him that he has been successful with her (dass ich sie 
 erobert hdtte). He meets Fraulein Gochhausen, to whom we 
 owe the preservation of the Urfaust, and says : " The lady of 
 honour, a deformed and quizzing {moquantes} creature, to w^hom 
 I paid a little attention, was so polite igalant) as to treat me to a 
 rose which she went to the garden to choose for me " (im Garten 
 fur mich suchte). This was written on July 28th. In a letter 
 of August 29th, we find the account of the Weimar ladies 
 which Mr. Lewes quotes, and which succeeding writers have been 
 content to echo. I must give it in the original. " Die hiesigeit 
 Damen sindganz erstaunlich emjofindsam (Schiller was astounded 
 at the condition of women at Weimar). Daist beinahe keine, 
 die nicht eine Geschichte hdtte oder gehabt hdtte. (There is 
 hardly one of them who has not had a liaison). Erobern 
 mochten sie gem alle." (They are all coquettes.) Here a few 
 lines respecting the personal appearance of some lady whose 
 initials only are given occur. Man kann hier sehr leicht zu 
 
Goethe's weimar life. 9 
 
 ^iner Angelegenheit des Ilerzens kommen, welche aber freilich 
 bald genug ihren ersten Wohnplatz verdndert (one may very 
 easily fall into an " affair of the heart," though it will not last 
 .any time). Sancta bimplicitas I One feels how Mr. Lewes, 
 with his knowledge of the w^orld, would have ridiculed anyone 
 who had founded a deliberate and sweeping condemnation upon 
 anything so ambiguous, so tainted in its origin, as this gossip of 
 Schiller's. The married lady who with more than maternal 
 -anxiety warns her tender and simple protege against the naughti- 
 ness of a strange world, would have been laughed out of court. 
 Schiller even adds in the same passage, that his absence from tea 
 parties of the place was attributed to a desire on the part of 
 Charlotte von Kalb to establish a despotism over him. 
 
 Groethe, writing to the Frau von Stein, in May, 178 c (Z1233), 
 says quite casually '' Frau von Werthern has written me a very 
 pretty little letter on sending back WilhelmMeister, The Schroter 
 is coming in in the middle of the day. I am, and once for all 
 continue to be the darling of the ladies, and as such you too will 
 have to love me." Here we have this terrible EmpfLndsamkeit and 
 Goquetterie reduced to their proper dimensions. In fact, Schiller 
 himself, on the 14th of October, had taken stock of the people, 
 .and felt so far reconciled to Weimar as to invite Korner to come 
 -and join him. He enumerates the members of the Weimar 
 :Bociety. '^ Wieland and his extremely worthy wife, ugly as 
 night, but true as gold, and natural and cheerful with the 
 simplicity of a child. Herder and his wife, both full of Geist and 
 Genie ; Bertuch and his wife (who are very pleasant to associate 
 \with), Bode, Voigt, Hufeland, Eiedel, S. and his daughter (who 
 .are quite equal to the worthy people of Dresden), Frau Schroder, 
 Frau von Stein and her sister Imhoff, Knebel, and others besides 
 -quite the sort of people {tauter Menschen) whom one does not 
 iind collected together in one place — these would furnish a very 
 fine background to our friendship. This would give, counting 
 ourselves, two and twenty people with whom one could very 
 well live. People here are poor, and you can live pleasantly 
 with a little money." This is Schiller's verdict upon the people 
 among whom he elected to end his days after he had got to know 
 them at first hand. 
 
 To show how vaguely Schiller used the word Geschichte we 
 
10 GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 need only turn to his letter of August 29th, when speaking of 
 Jena he says — *' As a whole the morals of the students here have 
 much improved. One hears, too, little more of duels ; and yet 
 no week goes by without some history or other {irgend eine 
 Geschichte). For Mr. Lewes to have translated a neutral 
 German word like this by a French word which in English 
 has associations so predominantly bad is reprehensible enough^ 
 and he makes it still worse when later on he applies the 
 same French word to the connexions with Christiane and with 
 the Frau von Stein indifferently. And here Mr. Hay ward 
 who had accepted the supposed quotation from Schiller 
 apparently without verification feels called upon to protest.. 
 But besides Frau von Kalb, Schiller had another mentor in the 
 form of Wieland, whom his own son-in-law pronounced to be the 
 worst judge possible of men. Wieland had his eye upon 
 Schiller as a contributor to his journal, the Merkur. He also 
 may have had other designs. Jn a letter of November 19^ 
 1787, Schiller writes to Korner — "A few day ago I fell into a 
 discursive talk with Wieland about his family, which was pro- 
 longed into the night. I stayed there until it was quite eleven, 
 and found myself among these people just as if I belonged to- 
 them. And yet, my friend, I do not belong to these men, of 
 that I feel most firmly persuaded. I am really too much of 
 the Weltkind among them, whilst they are totally inexperienced 
 natures. I really believe that Wieland knows so little of me 
 that he would not refuse me his darling, his second daughter^ 
 even now when I have nothing. The girl I do not know, not 
 in the least, but look you I would ask her of him to-day if I felt 
 that I deserved her. It is marvellous, I worship, I love the- 
 tender-hearted, feeling nature, and a coquette— any coquette 
 can lead me captive. Each one of them has unfailing power 
 over me, through my idleness and sensuousness ; none of them 
 can set me aflame, only make me full of disquiet. I have high 
 ideas of domestic happiness, and yet not enough sense of it to 
 desire it for myself. I shall ever continue isolated in the world. 
 I shall sip from all enjoyments without enjoying them. To 
 return to Wieland's daughter: I tell you that I believe that 
 such a being as this could make me happy if I had enough 
 selfishness to allow me to be happy without making another 
 
GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. ' 11 
 
 happy, and on this last point I feel very doubtful. In an 
 eternal union such as I should enter upon there must be no 
 passion, and on that account I have in this case dallied a good 
 deal. I do not know the maiden, and still less do I feel any 
 degree of love — either sensuous or Platonic — but the firmest 
 persuasion that she is a good creature, that she feels deeply, and 
 can attach herself intimately, with this circumstance also that 
 she has been excellently trained to womanhood, has extremely 
 few needs, and housewifeliness without end." Hebegs Korner 
 as a result of all that he knows about him to tell him candidly 
 whether he ought to marry and to marry an artless maiden. 
 When he hears from him, and not before, he will begin to make 
 her acquaintance. He adds significantly "Charlotte knows 
 nothing of this monologue of my reason." Korner's reply is as 
 curious and analytical in its way, but too long to quote. In 
 connexion, however, with this specimen which 8chiller's letter 
 gives of Grerman courtship in the 18th century I would call 
 attention to an extract from Korner's letter to Schiller of 
 September 7th, 1787. Korner's wife was Minna Stock, and her 
 sister Dora had at this time a lover, Huber, who eventually jilted 
 her. He writes to Schiller—" I am persuaded that it is labour 
 in vain to try to put a stop to the connexion between Dora and 
 Huber, and so long as there is any possibility of its becoming a 
 source of happiness to both it would be pedantic bungling to 
 destroy it, and in fact must all connexions between persons of 
 opposite sexes be stamped with the pattern of the ordinary 
 romance ? " 
 
 At the back of all these questions lies the difference which 
 existed between English and German practice in the last century 
 in the matter of the ease and frequency with which marriages 
 were legally dissolved. English opinion was moved by the glaring 
 example of Warren Hastings, when the elegant Marianne from 
 being the wife of Imhoff was transferred to the Governor 
 General of India. The obliging Imhoff afterwards married P>au 
 von Stein's sister. The termination of Stella attracted 
 sufficient attention to cause it to be parodied in " The Rovers, 
 or Double Arrangement," of the Antijacobin, and the " Chop 
 and Change Ribs a la Mode Germanorum " of the widely popular 
 "Rejected Addresses" points in the same direction. And 
 
12 Goethe's weimar life. 
 
 turning to Germany, we could easily multiply instances from 
 the lives of well-known persons of the prevalence of the 
 practice. Korner in 1787 (Nov. 23), whilst Groethe was in .Rome, 
 asks Schiller whether what he hears is true, viz., that Groethe 
 intends to marry the Frau von Stein, and has got himself 
 ennobled for that purpose, but that her family prevented it, and 
 that this was the cause of his dissatisfaction with Weimar. 
 To which Schiller merely replies " Your news concerning Groethe 
 is unfounded." (I. 222.) 
 
 Whatever might have been the case when Mr. Lewes wrote, 
 there can be no doubt that we now know enough both of the 
 general tone of Weimar society, that is of the Court society, 
 -and also of the lives and adventures of all its principal members, 
 to be able to say that the burthen of proof lies upon anyone who 
 gives such an account of them as Mr. Lewes did, and makes the 
 assumptions which he made. And I would say that the worst 
 part of Mr. Lewes's indictment comes before what I have 
 quoted, and seems to be simply constructed out of his inner 
 •consciousness. 
 
 The presiding spirit of the Court, who during her long widow- 
 hood and the minority of her son had made it what it was at the 
 time of Groethe's arrival, was the Duchess Amalia, who had 
 chosen such people as Wi eland and Knebel to help her in her 
 task of education. I may quote from Keil's " Vor hundert 
 Jahren " her idea of what a theatre should be. ''She thought 
 that it should serve as a school of virtue and morals ; not only 
 should it furnish the Court with entertainment of the most 
 seemly kind, and give to the officials the noblest refreshment 
 from their official duties, and to the most busy class of inhabi- 
 tants a most innocent pastime, but should also extend to the 
 lowest classes of all a source of public enjoyment." 
 
 Christian von Stolberg wrote to his sister after visiting 
 Weimar on November 27, 1775 : " Our Groethe was there and is 
 there still, and I love him more than ever. The whole ducal 
 family is unlike any courtly family ; one associates with them 
 all just as if they were human like ourselves. You know Louise 
 from the description. She is still the Angel! the elder 
 Duchess, the image of personified Reason, and withal so pleasant 
 and natural. The Duke is a noble young man, full of promise, 
 
Goethe's weimar life. 13 
 
 as is also his brother One evening we supped with 
 
 the Prince, the Duke's brother. Suddenly the door opened, and 
 lo ! the Dowager Duchess entered with the wife of the Master of 
 the Horse, an excellent, genial, beautiful Frau von Stein ; each 
 bore a long sword from the armoury, an ell taller than me, and 
 they dubbed us knights. We stayed sitting at table, and the ladies 
 went round and poured us out champagne. After supper we 
 played ' blind man's buff,' and we kissed the wife of the Master 
 of the Horse who stood by the duchess. At what other Court 
 would such a thing have been allowed ? " 
 
 I need hardly remark that we have here a glimpse into the 
 home life of the elder Duchess,and that such an evening's amuse- 
 ment in company with her younger son and his two youthful 
 friends {Bwrschen Merck called them) hardly bears to be quoted 
 as it is by SchoU to show with what freedom kissing was allowed 
 at Weimar {tyiU welcher Ungenirtheit in Weimar damals 
 gekusst ivurde). The Duchess herself was indeed unconven- 
 tional. ''What attaches Wieland to her," writes Schiller in 
 1787, *' is the freedom which she permits him to use towards her 
 — to sleep on the sofa by her side. They say that he has con- 
 tradicted her with the greatest warmth and once threw a book 
 at her head. I cannot testify to the truth of this last — at least 
 the lump raised by it is no longer to be seen." Schiller is 
 evidently getting to take what is told him with a grain. He adds 
 *' About the great spirits here in particular {grossen Geistern) one 
 is perpetually hearing ridiculous stories." Goethe in writing to 
 the Duke on January 25th, 1781, speaks of the Dowager Duchess 
 being furious at a breach of morality in her household and hold- 
 ing out threats of the house of correction (Zuchthaus). When 
 Groethe and the Duke travelled to Switzerland a coarse joke of 
 Einsiedeln's upon the '' handsome Wedel " was forwarded to 
 Frankfort to await their return. A letter from Frau Aja to the 
 Dowager Duchess shows that these two mothers of distinguished 
 men did not like a joke the less for its being rather coarse, and 
 she assures her that it shall not lose in the telling. (ScholL) 
 
 Against the Duchess Louise no one has ventured to 
 breathe a syllable even suggestive of laxity. Later on, 
 when the Duke entered into a relation such as was 
 regarded in those days as quite a natural one for princes, 
 
14 GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 she acquiesced with the best grace, and the Baroness 
 Heygendorf was raised to a position at Court similar to 
 that of the Lady ^Suffolk, to whom in Scott's inimitable 
 scene, Jeannie Deans expounded in the presence of the 
 delighted Queen Caroline the uses of the " Cutty stool." 
 Goethe had hoped that the Countess Werthern of Neunheiligen 
 might have been to the Duke something of what Frau von 
 Stein was to him. Her eccentric husband was in some respects 
 the prototype of the Count in Wilhelm Meister,hut anyone who 
 supposes that she sat for the portrait of the Schone Grdfln, 
 between whom and Wilhelm Philina contrived a meeting, can 
 hardly have read the sympathetic and delicate portraiture of her 
 which Goethe drew in his letters to Frau von Stein (1152-3-4^. 
 Prince Constantine turned out badly. He had a harmless 
 Mtachment for Fraulein von Ilten which was not favoured by 
 his friends, but the scenes of his fast life were not Weimar, but 
 Paris and London. 
 
 Charlotte von Stein's mother, Frau von Schardt, was of Scotch 
 descent, and Fritz describes her as a serious, pious, feeling old 
 lady. On the back of Goethe's " Wanderers Nachtlied," in 
 which he sighs for peace, she wrote some words from the 14th 
 ^•.hapter of St. John : " Peace I leave with you." 
 
 Stein himself appears to have been a worthy man who lived 
 all his life at Court. Goethe speaks of his inability to manage 
 his estate. His bailiff presumed on his easy-going nature, and 
 while he cheated him thought him a fool for his pains. To say, 
 as Mr. Sime does, that "He was a sensible, practical person, 
 who did not interfere with his wife's friendships; and the idea 
 that there was any reason why he should be jealous of Goethe 
 seems never to have entered his mind" (Life of Goethe, 
 p. 93), seems in the face of the treatment which she 
 eventually met with from Goethe, and the slur which, 
 however undeservedly, has been cast upon her fair fame, 
 to be, to say the least of it, paradoxical. To exonerate Stein or 
 his wife or Goethe for their respective shares in producing these 
 results seems quite wrong, though a great deal may be said in 
 extenuation. This aspect of the matter is so admirably stated 
 in the preface by William Fielitz to the second edition of Scholl's 
 Letters to the Frau von Stein that I am tempted to quote 
 
Goethe's weimar life. 15 
 
 the passage at length (vol. i., p. 9). ''From the first her heart 
 was not untouched by the homage which the poet paid openly 
 before the world. This blunt openness, too, gave from the first 
 a certain naive innocence to his tempestuous adoration. With 
 the same openness with which he had philandered with the 
 WetzLar Lotte under the very eyes of Kestner, and with 
 which he had roused Brent an o to jealousy, he made it no secret 
 from the Master of the Horse that he was in love with his wife. 
 Numbers of the little notes which reached her from his valley bore 
 on the blank reverse of the paper the address " P>au v. Stein,'' 
 but with no trace of a seal. They w^ere entrusted for delivery 
 without envelope or covering, sometimes not even folded letter- 
 wise, to any messenger that offered, with an innocence to us 
 almost inconceivable — which feared no eye and no tongue. 
 Nothing but this openness made it possible for her to accept his 
 addresses, and she never failed to keep him in mind of the limits 
 to which his impetuosity must submit. The connexion began 
 for her, I think, half as a frankly permitted joke, a game 
 the seriousness of which she could not anticipate, for the 
 butterfly sipped from all the flowers of the court and 
 society ; a game of which she thought she could always 
 retain the control, and which must soon find its natural end in 
 Goethe's departure. But Goethe stayed on, he stayed in high 
 office : what she and her husband had permitted had been per- 
 mitted too long to be now arbitrarily ended at the risk of creat- 
 ing a scandal. She was conscious of her wrong doing, of " the 
 sin which she loved so well " {ihr so liehen S'dnde), more keenly 
 so than he was of his, but the circumstances and relations and the 
 very feeling which had grown up in her heart had enveloped her 
 in toils such as she could only have broken through with violence. 
 Moreover she felt herself so far bound to Goethe, and in fact 
 there was wanting to both the outward necessity which ought to 
 have been imposed by the husband. Brentano's jealousy had 
 in its time brought Goethe promptly to his senses, and he then 
 drew back and mastered himself, and after this conquest wrote 
 to Sophie Laroche " I promised you that if her heart would 
 incline to her husband, I would return again. I am again there, 
 and remain to my death if she continues wife, mistress of 
 her house and mother, amen." There is no doubt that earnest- 
 
16 GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 ness and jealousy on Stein's side would have produced its effect 
 in this case, but Stein — was not jealous. Belonging as he did 
 at first to the Court party which was very much dissatisfied with 
 Goethe's influence on the Duke, he yet was as unable as the rest 
 to escape the charm of the loveable stranger, the strengthening 
 and growing wisdom of whose ofticial labours soon reconciled him 
 even to Goethe's relation to the Duke. Stein therefore appears 
 in the correspondence as a valued friend whom they are under 
 no necessity to keep in the dark as to their relation, to whom 
 not only are greetings sent, but letters are even entrusted for 
 delivery." 
 
 Lastly, we come to Goethe himself, and here I must say that I 
 think that the proceedings of the " lustige Zeit " in Weimar when 
 Goethe had just come and was, as he afterwards described ity 
 *' Grand Master of the Apes," have been allowed to take an 
 altogether disproportionate space in his biography. It was a time 
 at worst of " empty noise " which died out of itself so soon as 
 Goethe settled down to official work, and came under the influence 
 of the Frau von Stein. That Goethe had the reputation of 
 being a great flirt is clear, among other things, from the little 
 dramatic piece called Rhyno which that lady wrote in 1776 and 
 afterwards showed to him. Several of the Court ladies, herself 
 included, meet together, and by an accident are led to compare 
 notes, with the result that they find that each alike has received 
 a bundle of billets doux from him. Headers of the " Confessions 
 of a Beautiful SouJ, " in Wilhelm Meisier will remember the 
 incident of the gentleman who as a forfeit had to whisper to 
 certain ladies and was attacked by the husband of one of them 
 with a sword. 
 
 The invention of a special word in the little language of the 
 Court for this pastime in which Goethe was an admitted adept 
 shows how much it was in vogue. Misel means in Goethe's 
 letters and diaries of those days a young unmarried woman, and 
 is probably a corruption of demoiselle. It is applied to Corona 
 Schroter who is die schone Misel. Goethe tells Frau von 
 Stein "If you were a Misel I should ask you so-and-so, but being 
 as you are eine weise Frau, I do not." He dreams that Frau von 
 Stein has married him to ein artiges Misel. The word is 
 applied also to young women of the peasantry who were invited to 
 
Goethe's weimar life. 17 
 
 the rather mixed entertainments which the Duke gave in the 
 country, when, in order, as Groethe put it, to be like for once in 
 a way to our Heavenly Father, he invited a large party, with this 
 difference — that the people from the hedges were put from the 
 first upon the list of invitations. At such a party on the 
 Wartburg in 1777 the Misels "all assured me," said Groethe, 
 "that they loved me, and I assured them that they were 
 charming." 
 
 P'rom the word Misel came the verb miseln, meaning " to 
 flirt," and Groethe describes how on January 27, 1776, when Frau 
 von Stein failed to come to Court, he set to work to miseln. " Ich 
 log und trog mich bei alien hiibschen Gesichtern herum, und 
 hatte den Vortheil immer im Augenblick zu glauben was ich 
 sagte." 
 
 But this pastime he gave up at the Frau von Stein's insti- 
 gation (L. 973), and only revived it to some extent after his 
 return from Italy when, as Frau von Schardt complained, Groethe 
 at a dancing pic-nic had hardly spoken to any sensible woman, but 
 danced a good deal, and kissed the hands of the girls and said 
 pretty things to them. Even as late as 1798 Emily Gore told 
 Charlotte Schiller how surprised she had been when Goethe 
 came up to her after dinner and addressed her as " my dear, 
 only, incomparable friend " {Ma chere, seule, unique amie)! 
 
 This, however, only gives us the light and frivolous side of 
 those early Weimar years. Their other aspect shows us Goethe 
 toiling like a slave {Leibeigener) at his official duties, and only 
 as a rule taking such relaxation as was involved in dropping 
 into the Frau von Stein's for mid-day meal, or to spend the even- 
 ing. The characteristic productions of this time were Tasso and 
 Iphigenie. The record of their monotonous tenour is preserved 
 in the letters to the Frau von Stein. The meagre entries in his 
 diaries supply a sort of inner framework of fact, opinion and 
 aspirations. It w^as surely the strangest hallucination on the 
 part of Mr. Robert Keil to suppose that they might be made to 
 give up secrets respecting irregularities of life for which no other 
 evidence is forthcoming, and anyone who compares the text of 
 the Diary as published by the Weimar editors with Mr. R. 
 Keil's extracts will see what small support it gives to his 
 views. 
 
18 GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 
 
 In Dichiung und Wahrheit, Goethe speaks of Lenz as furnish- 
 ing an instance of a passing fashion in morals which he says 
 was supposed to have been started by the Sorroivs of 
 Werther. Those who had followed it for the most part com- 
 bined an avoidance of the practical pursuits of life with a high 
 ideal, in pursuance of which they made strict demands upon 
 themselves, practised a vigilant self-examination, and made it at 
 once more exacting and more definite by the help of diaries 
 and other methodical aids. Anyone who reads Goethe's letters 
 to the Frau von Stein cannot doubt that at the time of Lenz's 
 visit, 1776, and for ten years afterwards, he \n as aiming at a very 
 high ideal. And those who read his diary kept in those years 
 can hardly doubt that he would include it among the well- 
 meant but mistaken aids to self-improvement which his later 
 experience made him condemn. He especially notices the 
 impulse which the rising School of Empirical Psychology gave 
 to self-introspection, and the tendency more or less decided 
 which inclined to discredit, if not condemn, everything that 
 caused internal disquietude of mind (alles was uns innerlich 
 beunruhigt) {D, & W., Part 3, p. 246, 14). The opposite of this 
 disquietude, and that at w^hich Goethe aimed in these years, is 
 summed up in the word Reinheit, which occurs continually 
 in the diary and letters of the period. Mr. Sime, in his Life of 
 Goethe in the " Series of Great Writers," quotes a passage from 
 his diary (August 7th, 1 779), which he renders as follows : " May 
 the idea of purity, extending even to the morsel I take into 
 my mouth, become ever more luminous in me." ^ But Rein- 
 heit, I would submit, does not at all express the opposite, 
 of our word impurity. It expresses the absence of all internal 
 disquietude of mind. Johanna Fahlmer, writing of Goethe on 
 September 27th, 1779, says, in words which I must quote in the 
 original (G. 40) : " Goethe Jcann gut und brav, auch gross sein, 
 nur in Liehe ist er nicht rein und dazu wirJdich nicht gross 
 genug. Er hat zu viel Mischungen in sich die wirren, und da 
 kann er die Seite, wo eigentlich Liehe ruht, nicht blank und 
 eben Lassen.''^ 
 
 In matters intellectual we may see its meaning in Goethe's 
 words respecting Frederick the Great : Ebenso pflegt man 
 auch einem Menschen der sonst viel gewirkt hat, die Reinheit, 
 
GOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE. 19 
 
 Klarheit und Richtigkeit des Verstandes zuzuschreiben. Man 
 pflegt sich ihn ohne Vorwrtheile, unterrichtet und gerecht zvu 
 dsnken,^^ where it means absence of prejudices. A sermon of 
 Herder's is spoken of (G., I, 37) as rein because it is " ohne 
 Picks,^' i.e., free from personal feeling. In matters of sense we 
 may illustrate his meaning from his Italian Letters (p. 102, S) 
 though the word is not used. Speaking of his sightseeing, he 
 says, " Ich lebe sehr didt und halte mich ruhig damit die 
 Gegenstdnde keine erhohte Seele findea, sondern die Sede 
 erhiJhen^^ Lastly, Goethe, in his education of Fritz von k>tein 
 aimed, I gather, at avoiding the qualities which he blamed in 
 himself. " Stein," wrote Korner, " is natural, unembarrassed, 
 cheerful, understanding, without betraying any remarkable 
 capacity. He is receptive without a trace of enthusiasm, bat 
 not without warmth. I observed him narrowly as an artistic 
 product of Pedagogy." Schiller replies that Groethe has really 
 had his education entirely in hand, and has aimed therein at 
 making him thoroughly objective. " I, too, have always thought 
 his a very gracious nature, and he has at times put me quite 
 out of conceit with what is called geniality, since without 
 having a trace of it he is so good and estimable." {Schol! F vet- 
 St. ii., 382.) 
 
 To sum up my conclusions, I submit that to argue from 
 Groethe's writings to his life is in the absence of definite evidencr 
 a proceeding which at this time of day is inadmissible. More- 
 over in Goethe's long life the different periods have each their 
 own note, and we cannot with any certainty infer that what 
 Goethe did or felt at one time he felt or would have done at 
 another. Mr. Lewes gives an account of Weimar which is 
 contradicted by what we know of the facts, and is not borne out 
 by the only evidence, viz., that of Schiller, which he adduces 
 for it ; and his motive in doing so, or rather the use he 
 made of it, is to excuse Goethe's braving public opinion in 
 the matter of Christiane, by minimising the departure w^hich he 
 then took from the tenour of his earlier A\'eimar life. Whereas 
 the more we know about him the more it becomes evident that 
 those early years were years of high ideals and stern self-disci- 
 pline, to which in their then form his visit to Rome put an end. 
 It was a turning point in his life, as well as in the tone and 
 
20 Goethe's weimar life. 
 
 character of his writings, and his subsequent life and writings 
 constituted in the fullest sense of the word a new departure. 
 There were elements in the old life which led up to the new 
 mostly in the way of producing reaction, whereas we may yet 
 look upon the whole life as, taken altogether, one of wonderful 
 consistency and development. 
 
 Nothing, perhaps, is more characteristic of Groethe than what 
 he calls des Lehens ernstes F'dhren, the steady and serious pur- 
 pose which runs through it. At 28 he wrote to Salzmann " My 
 forward nisus is so strong that I can seldom force myself to 
 take breath and look back." 
 
 In 1782 (L. 1,444), he wrote to Frau von Stein : *' Aimless- 
 ness makes me furious, and I have declared an eternal feud 
 against it." At the same time he made no claim to consistency. 
 
 " When a man talks about things in general or about some- 
 thing which is to be done at a future time, he generally talks 
 poor stuff." We must act according to circumstances. Man 
 must leave behind him the days of sweet illusion. His words 
 to Knebel in December, 1781, express both his strength and his 
 weakness. " The necessity of my nature compels me to a varied 
 activity, and I should have had to be just as industrious in the 
 smallest village as upon a desert island if only to keep myself 
 alive. If, however, things do not please me I give them lightly 
 the go-by, since it is an article of my faith that it is only by stead- 
 fastness and fidelity in our present condition that we become 
 worthy of a higher step in that which follows, and are able to 
 take it whether here in time or yonder in eternity." 
 
2.— GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 Bv THE REV. F. R CORNISH. 
 
 Paper read 25th February, 1891. 
 
 "Lavater," wrote Goethe in April, 1782, " affects rae much as 
 a man would who should explain to me at some length that the 
 earth is not an exact sphere — that it is in fact flattened at the 
 poles, and should establish this by a variety of proofs and con- 
 vince me that he had the newest, fullest, and most correct ideas 
 of astronomy and physical geography ; what should we say if 
 such a man finished by remarking : ' Lastly I must mention the 
 most important circumstance of all, namely that this earth 
 whose shape we have demonstrated with the greatest exactness 
 rests upon the back of a tortoise, without which it would be lost 
 in the abyss ' ? " 
 
 The future biographer of Groethe, when he reaches the 
 date of the poet's removal to Weimar in November, 1775, 
 will, I think, looking at the treatment which his Weimar life 
 received from Mr. Lewes and the assumptions commonly made 
 by English writers about him, find that his task is (me of some 
 difficulty. He will have to convince his* readers, firstly, that 
 Goethe, the poet of many loves, was for a period of ten years 
 dependent to an incredible extent upon a woman eight years 
 older than himself, a married woman too, the mother of seven 
 children, and who was not even beautiful, for that sympathetic 
 support and affection without which life would have been 
 intolerable to him ; and secondly, that the relationship between 
 the author of the Roman Elegies and this lady was during all 
 these years a perfectly pure one. The difficulty will arise not 
 from evidence to the contrary, for there is none, but from what 
 will be considered to be the antecedent probabilities, and the 
 inherent difficulty of proving a negative, whilst the strength of 
 the biographer's case, consisting as it does in the main in the 
 
22 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 tone of a correspondence of between sixteen and seventeen hun- 
 dred notes and letters, will require in anyone who is to appreci- 
 ate it something more than the languid interest with which the 
 general reader is apt to regard such questions. 
 
 I must ask my hearers to-night to accept provisionally the 
 second of these two assertions. Those who have heard two 
 former papers of mine will have seen some of the grounds upon 
 which I consider it not antecedently improbable. The first 
 assertion I proceed to deal with, and from Goethe's voluminous 
 letters I have selected three specimens — (1) a few written in 
 the early days of his attachment ; (2) a short series as a sample 
 of the longer letters written when he was away on a visit ; and 
 (3) some personal references which were omitted when he 
 adapted his Italian letters for publication. Groethe had been 
 little more than six months at Weimar when he adopted in his 
 diary some astronomical signs which saved him from writing 
 certain of the recurring names. The signs chosen are not 
 without significance. The sun is the Frau von Stein, Jupiter 
 is the Duice Karl August, the moon is the Dowager Duchess, 
 the Duchess Louise is a star, Prince Constantino is the Archer, 
 Countess Werthern is Venus, and Wieland is very appropriately 
 Mercury; but all that I would draw your attention to now is that 
 the central body round which Groethe, the new comer, and the 
 rest of the Weimar planetary system seem to him to revolve is 
 the lady with whom we are occupied to-night. 
 
 Charlotte Albertine Ernestine von Stein was born at Weimar 
 25th December, 1742, and was the daughter of Chamberlain 
 {Hofmarschall) v. Schardt and Concordia Elizabeth, his wife, 
 who was a Scotchwoman of the family of Irving of Drum. From 
 her 16th to her 21st year she was Maid of Honour to the 
 widowed Duchess Amalia, and on the 8th of May, 1764, married 
 von Stein of Kochberg, a young courtier, who subsequently 
 became Master of the Horse (Oherstallmeister) . Of the seven 
 children who were born to her in the first nine years of 
 her married life four daughters died in childhood, and three 
 sons — Karl, Ernst, and Fritz — survived. Her husband's office 
 kept him much at Court, and Charlotte's health and duties 
 kept her at home, whilst the circumstances of her life pro- 
 duced a deep settled depression, in Groethe's words (L. 425) 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 23 
 
 " She often dreamt that tlie Holy Ghost of life had deserted 
 her." 
 
 Of the poet's relation to her who was for so many years to 
 sway his spirit, there were not wanting premonitory indications, 
 although they had never met. Zimmermann, as a physician and 
 a man of letters, knew them both. In 1775, in answer to the 
 lady's expressed desire to see the author of Werther and Glavigo, 
 he wrote " But, my poor friend, take thought ; you wish to see 
 him, but you do not know to what extent this amiable and 
 charming man might be a source of danger to you." 
 
 In July Zimmermann met Goethe in Zurich, and showed him 
 among others the Frau von Stein's silhouette, and reported to 
 her the words which the poet had written at the foot. "- It 
 would be a glorious spectacle to see how the world mirrors 
 itself in this soul. She sees the world as it is, and yet through 
 the medium of love, so that the general impression is one of 
 gentleness." Goethe, he adds, is sure to visit Weimar, and had 
 passed three sleepless nights after hearing all that Zimmermann 
 had to tell about the original. On passing on the silhouette to 
 Lavater for the purposes of his great work Goethe gave his 
 reading of it which I need not quote. 
 
 Knebel sketched her as follows : " Clear, true feeling, combined 
 with a natural, placid and easy disposition, have through her 
 own diligence and association with superior men, aided by her 
 exceptionally keen desire to learn, produced a being of a nature 
 and quality not easily to be matched in Germany. She is 
 devoid of all pretence and adornment, direct, natural, free, not 
 too heavy and not too light, free from enthusiasm, and yet with 
 spiritual warmth, takes interest in all intellectual matters and 
 all things that concern mankind, is well educated, and has 
 delicate tact and even an aptitude for art." 
 
 And Schiller, in 1787, spoke of her as a "truly singular 
 interesting person. Beautiful she can never have been, but her 
 face has a mild earnestness, and a quite peculiar openness. 
 Sound understanding, feeling and truth are of the very essence 
 of her being." 
 
 The whole of her letters to Goethe which had not been burnt 
 so soon as received, were returned to her, and it is to be presumed 
 destroyed, so that we can only gather our ideas of their contents 
 
24 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 from his letters to her. There is, however, a charming letter 
 from her to her son Fritz extant (tScholl II. 574), written 
 when the boy was accompanying Goethe on a short tour 
 in September, 1783: "It gives me great pleasure that 
 in the beautiful far away world you think of me and 
 can tell me so in writing which if not very well formed 
 is yet tolerably so. Since you are staying away so much 
 longer than I thought you would, I am afraid that your wardrobe 
 must be in a bad way. If your clothes are good for nothing, and 
 you perhaps also, just tell Geheimderath Goethe to throw my 
 dear little Fritz into the water. I have delivered your little 
 letter and given your kind regards to all the pages. I will take 
 care to plant the young bulbs. The young kittens beg to be 
 remembered to you, and jump about and romp together just like 
 the young von Steins used to do. Murz, however, is grown so 
 serious, just like your old mother. Good-bye : think what a lucky 
 boy you are, and try by your good behaviour to please the 
 Geheimderath. I will give your birthday wishes to Ernst as 
 soon as he comes."" 
 
 The Duke Karl August had met Goethe once or twice 
 before he formally invited him to Weimar, and probably he 
 and his advisers shared the opinion expressed by Lavater 
 to Zimmermann in 1774 : " Goethe would be a noble instrument 
 in the hands of a prince. That is his vocation. He might be a 
 king. He has not only wisdom and bonhomie, but power as 
 well." 
 
 The irruption of Goethe, the bourgeois man of genius, into the 
 somewhat unconventional court world of Weimar was bound to 
 be signalised by notable phenomena. Men at a distance like 
 Klopstock heard that Karl August under the new favourite's 
 guidance was going from bad to worse. Nearer observers were 
 scandalised by the rollicking reign of fun and practical jokes. 
 The wisest, such as the Ducheps Amalia, were content to wait. 
 In Goethe's general letters we get the reflection of his own 
 thoughts during this new time, when it was an open question 
 whether he stayed on or not. He writes to Johanna Fahlmer in 
 November, 1775 (L. 367), '' My life is like a sledge journey — 
 wonderful." To Lavater he writes December 31 (L 375 j, " I learn 
 daily how to steer myself on the wave of humanity. I am on 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VOX STEIN. 25 
 
 the deep sea." To the same, in March, 1776 (L. 412), "I am 
 now quite embarked on the wave of the world — fully resolved to 
 discover, win, fight, make shipwreck, or blow myself with all the 
 cargo into the air." 
 
 He has secured Herder's appointment as Greneral Superinten- 
 dent, but for himself his stay is uncertain. 
 
 Meanwhile he has been gradually getting into harness as a 
 Privy Councillor and administrator. The present of the Garden 
 House near the Ilm has enabled him to strike another root 
 into the soil. 
 
 But his letters to the Frau von Stein, in the absence of any 
 letters from her to him, enable us to trace the progress of the 
 great attraction which determined all. Not that Goethe made any 
 secret of it. To Johanna Fahlmer in February, 1776 (L. 402), 
 he wrote " The maidens here are quite pretty and pleasant, and 
 I am on good terms with all. A noble soul is the Frau von Stein, 
 to whom I am as one might say attached and firmly tied " 
 (geheftet und genistelt). To Wieland [April, 1776 ?] (L. 437) he 
 says, "I can only explain the significance — the power which this 
 lady exercises over me by the transmigration of souls. Yes, 
 we were once man and wife ! Now we recognise each other 
 — under a veil through a spirit mist. I have no name for us— 
 the past — the future — the all." The editors seem to have fixed 
 the date of this letter, in which too no one is named, with 
 reference to another (L. 439) in which Goethe writes to Frau 
 von Stein that he learns from Wieland that he has displeased 
 her, and says " Adieu, dear sister, — since such it is to be." In 
 May Goethe speaks of her to Auguste Stolberg as " an angel of 
 a woman, ask your brothers, whom I often have to thank for the 
 quieting of my heart and many of the purest blessings." To 
 Herder in August he says '' I have that angel the Stein again, 
 she went over Meiningen and Ilmenau back to Weimar. 
 For a whole day my eye was fixed on hers, and my closed 
 heart has thawed." It is plain, in fact, that one of the 
 causes of their earliest differences was the little restraint 
 that Goethe put upon himself in the way of veiling what 
 he felt. 
 
 Nor did he lose any time in letting the lady know the state 
 of his feelings. On December 6 be visited Kochberg, Stein's 
 
26 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 country seat, and wrote his name upon her desk. The extant 
 letters probably began in January, and from the first she is 
 addressed in terms of affection. The poet in whose works she 
 is interested is also one whose feverish, feeling heart needs 
 constant soothing and calming. Can she refuse the friendly 
 office ? He is here to-day, and may be gone to-morrow. And 
 how could the Frau von Stein refu^ her sympathy? And 
 when she had once begun to give it where could she draw the 
 line, especially when he took her rebukes so mildly, sub- 
 mitted to her stern conditions, and threw himself upon her kind- 
 ness ? He knows that he is weakness itself where her sex is con- 
 cerned, but if he can learn to love only her so much the better. 
 And she must look out for a wife for him as like herself as pos- 
 sible (Goethe had given a similar commission to Annette, Lotte, 
 and perhaps other ladies). Corona Schroter might have done if 
 she could but have lived near Frau von Stein for six months. 
 He feels that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to be 
 able to hand him over to a suitable partner and end her guar- 
 dianship thus. 
 
 And then they have such countless things in common. They 
 both share the Duchess Amalia's anxiety for the Duke and his 
 bride. He is a bit headstrong, but why is the angel Louise so 
 cold ? The Stein estate is a care to the lady, whose presence 
 brings joy to the thresholds of the peasants, and Stein, brought 
 up at court, is hopelessly at fault, whilst Goethe without prac- 
 tical experience is full of ideas and sympathy. Her boys want 
 educating, and Goethe loves children, knows all about the latest 
 methods, looks out for a French teacher for them, will read 
 English with her, lends books, and at last takes Fritz under 
 his own roof and care. They both draw, and Goethe spends 
 hours of his leisure time in sketching for her from nature, and 
 this can only be done well when the heart as well as the head 
 takes part in the work. Wieland saw one of his sketches and 
 at once said that it was plain who it was intended for. She is 
 told how to frame them, and sometimes exactly the spot where 
 they are to be hung. Stein's presence is required at the ducal 
 table, but Goethe is continually sending presents of fruit, 
 flowers, game, and such like, and dropping in for breakfast, 
 lunch, or supper with Charlotte. 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 27 
 
 The following letters are assigned by the editors to January, 
 1776, and may serve as specimens of Goethe's earlier style : — 
 
 L. 390. — " Under one roof with you ! I begin again to write. 
 There will be a plague of letters between us if things go on so from 
 morning to night. The Duke lets Wedel and me sit up stairs 
 here, and stands as I declare behind your chair. Here he is. We 
 have well talked over the past and the future. Like Margaret of 
 Parma, I foresee a good deal which I cannot change. Good 
 night, golden lady." 
 
 L. 392.— " I was up in the gallery, and saw Nobody's attentions 
 to you and his impertinences to his inferiors ; it was a fine joke. 
 The young Duchess was up to-day in a guise and nature truly 
 angelic ; they were pleasant together, and she was also pleasant 
 with me. Good night, dearest lady. I have not been able to 
 find out whether you wore my bouquet, but I believe that you 
 did, and on many points I have to be content with believing. 
 Good night, dear ! dear ! Still under one roof with you. Good 
 night." 
 
 L. 393. — " Dear lady, I w^as last night in a devilish humour to 
 begin with. Louise and I were depressed at your being away. The 
 Keller and the pretty little (niedliche) Eechtolsheim could not 
 set me going. Carl gave me the billet, and that made matters 
 worse; the soles of my feet burnt to run off to you. At last, I 
 began to flirt {miseln) and then things went better. Flirting 
 is the most approved palliative in such cases. I made the round 
 of all the pretty faces, protesting and flattering, and had the 
 advantage of always believing at the moment what I was saying. 
 I liked the milkmaiden, if younger and with better health, she 
 would be dangerous to me . . . The Duchess mother was 
 sweet and kind, Louise an angel. I felt at times as if I must 
 throw myself at her feet ! But I restrained myself, and chattered 
 about trifles. She gain say ed the Duke warmly about some slight 
 matter — but after that I made her laugh. We thought of you 
 dear, dear lady. Are you coming to-night ? " 
 
 L. 394. — " Dear Angel, I shall not be at the concert, for I am 
 so happy that I cannot bear these people. Dear Angel, I sent for 
 my letters, and was distressed that there was not a word there 
 
28 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 from you — not a pencilled word, not a good-night. Dear lady, 
 it is a pity that I love you so. If I love anyone better than you, 
 I will tell you. I will stop plaguing you. Good-bye, gold. 
 You do not understand how much I love you." 
 
 L. 395. — " Dear lady, I shall see you at five, but cannot tell you 
 anything about myself now. I felt very strange in the gallery, 
 and since then have gone through all sorts of things. Lindau is 
 gone. Perhaps I shall be able to persuade myself, and to know 
 when it is daytime and feel warm in the heat, and cold in the 
 frost. Perhaps it is all fancies — but this is how I feel at the 
 time, and when a change comes, it will show itself plainly 
 enough. My Stella has come from the printer's, and you, too, 
 shall have a copy. You shall also love me a little. I feel in 
 head and heart distracted as to whether I am to go or stay." 
 
 L. 396. — " I wrote this last night, and now good morning, and 
 Stella. I have slept well and my soul is peaceful and full of cheer- 
 ful feeling for the future. Do you come to court to-day ? Louise 
 was sweet last night. Great God I I cannot conceive what makes 
 her heart so contract. I looked into her soul, and if I did not feel 
 so warmly towards her she would certainly have chilled me. 
 Her annoyance about the Duke's dog, too, was so plain. They 
 are, indeed, for the most part, one as much in the wrong as the 
 other. He should have left it outside, and, when he had brought 
 it in, she should have been able to put up with it. Now, dear lady, 
 God keep you — love me. There is nothing else in the world." 
 
 L. 397. — " One after another ! Good ! Very good ! And now 
 the letters too. The idea of sending you the packet is foolish in 
 half-a-dozen ways. Don't laugh at me behind my back, for I 
 assure you I know them all. Only let no one know about it, or 
 get a sight of it." 
 
 L. 398. — " Dear lady, I am again called away, and have so much 
 to say to you. To-day I again told Wieland a good deal of the 
 history of my past year, and if you are kind to me, I will write 
 it down for you all alone. For it is something more than con- 
 fession if a man owns even those thino-s for which he does not 
 
 o 
 
 need absolution. Good-bye, Angel, you see I am not growing at 
 all wiser, and must thank God for it. Good-bye, And yet it 
 vexes me that I love you so much and just you." 
 
GOETHE AND FEAU VON STEIN. 29 
 
 Writing to the Frau von Stein in December, 1777 (L. 653), 
 Goethe, speaking of an earlier time, says, " So long as I lived 
 under repression {im DrucJc), so long as no one had any feeling for 
 what passed within me {in mir auf-und abstieg), nay rather as is 
 usual took no notice of me, and afterwards looked at me askance 
 on account of obvious eccentricities, I had, in spite of all the 
 sincerity of my heart, a mass of false, shallow pretensions. But 
 this is too vague ; I must particularise. I was then wretched, 
 careworn (genagt), depressed, stunted, or whatever you like to 
 call it. Now it is strange, especially when I am here volun- 
 tarily bringing myself to their common level, what a charm, what 
 happiness I find in it. Men rub against me as against a touch- 
 stone. Their civility, indifference, surly reticence, and boorish- 
 riess one with another, amuse me The end of the whole matter 
 {suonvia suTnmarum) is that the highest of all pretentions is to 
 have none." 
 
 The recognition which the author of Goetz von Berlichingen 
 and Werthei'had met with from the German public, if it removed 
 one cause of disquiet, the sense, that is, of unappreciated genius, 
 had left others. There was in the first place the social difficulty. 
 The restraints of the circle in which Lili moved had appeared 
 intolerable to Goethe with his more free and easy bringing up, 
 and if for the etiquette and formalities of the moi'e fashionable 
 society of Frankfort we substitute those of a court this difficulty 
 must have been aggravated by his translation to Weimar, and 
 however much licence there might have been in the very early 
 days, when he was perhaps only a passing guest, Goethe must 
 have been the 6rst to feel that he had to cultivate the court 
 manners, and that towards their formation the help of so prac- 
 tised a courtier as the Frau von Stein, if she would undertake the 
 task, would be invaluable. 
 
 We get a description of Goethe in February and March, 1775, 
 by G. M. Kraus, the painter (G.20), which shows what he was like 
 six months before he went to Weimar. " Goethe is now lively 
 and cheerful in society, goes to balls and dances like mad ; 
 flirts with the fair sex. This used not to be his way. Yet he 
 still has his old temper. In the midst of the most eager dis- 
 course it may please him to rise, hurry away, and not appear 
 again. He is quite unique, and does not follow the customs of 
 
80 GOETHE AND FKAU VON STEIN. 
 
 any other men : At times and places when everyone is dressed 
 in his best you may see him in most untidy attire, and vice 
 versdj'^ Beside this may be set Gleim's well-known description 
 of the rollicking fun which Goethe caused in the party in which 
 Gleim had been asked to read some of his poems, when he pro- 
 nounced " This must be either Goethe or the Devil," and 
 Wieland whispered " It is both." 
 
 P^'ielitz has given us a letter found in Scholl's papers, by a 
 writer whom he identifies as the Princess Hohenlohe, written 
 August 22, 1776, partly in French, partly in German. {Scholl 
 II. 693). " Oq arriving at Weimar I met our owl Schaardt. 
 I descended quickly from the carriage, and he led me to his sister 
 (Frauvon Stein), who was greatly surprised to see me. I found 
 with her the famous Goethe, who has not the air of a burgher, 
 but of a savant who has been spoiled by praise. In spite of this 
 air which I dislike, I must say that I found him amiable enough 
 and got quite to like him." 
 
 In 1778, Madame Karschiu, writing from Berlin, describes 
 Goethe as having been to a concert " where the whole assembly 
 found him very proud, as he was not lavish of bows and hand- 
 kissings. They say that the Emperor is going to make him a 
 baron, and that then he will get a wife of noble birth. He seems 
 in other respects to be a born hypochondriac, and no wonder, for 
 all the good heads are." 
 
 In December, 1784 {Scholl II. 596), Sophie Becker wrote, 
 after dining with the Frau von Stein " After dinner we saw the 
 Geheim Eat Goethe come in, who is very much at home {sehr 
 hekannt) in Herr von Stein's house. He has something 
 repulsively stiff in his whole bearing, and speaks very little. It 
 constantly seemed to me as if his greatness embarrassed him. 
 But meanwhile all who know Goethe intimately declare that he 
 is conscientious and upright in his office, and secretly maintains 
 the poor. His recently acquired position (neuer Standort) has. 
 according to the same testimony introduced something foreign 
 into his nature which some call pride and some weakness." 
 
 In the next place there was the official difficulty. Goethe, as 
 he wrote to Kestner in 1773, had been used to follow the bent of 
 his own genius and feelings, and no prince could be served in 
 this way. In March, 1776 (L. 414), he wrote to Merck : " I have 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 31 
 
 made trial of the Court, and am now going to make trial of the 
 administration." 
 
 In making trial of the administration, Groethe was aware that 
 he was at the same time deciding the question wdiether he 
 should stay or not at Weimar. Had he failed as a practical 
 administrator, no power on earth would have prevented him from 
 ordering post horses and driving away. As it was he was full of 
 energy and application. He loved to roam over the country and 
 gain- a practical acquaintance with it. The novelty of mixing 
 with the people incognito, enjoying their simple Homeric life, and 
 learning to value their homely virtues, had a great charm for 
 him. We find him in his letters visiting the miners, the con- 
 victs, the recruits, the starving weavers at Apolda, helping to 
 put out the fires in the neighbouring villages. As the disciple 
 of Moser he was deeply interested in plans for bettering their 
 condition. He studied farming and the improvement of estates 
 under the Englishman Batty. He studied geology and 
 mineralogy, and re-opened the Ihmenau mines. He started a 
 drawing school. But the sad and sober side of things was well- 
 known to him. "That you are worried with trifling occupa- 
 tions," he wrote to Lavater in March, 1780 (L. 907), "is only the 
 common lot. In youth one feels confident that one can build 
 men palaces, but when it comes to the point one finds that he has 
 his hands quite full of work in order to keep them decently 
 scavenged." To Biirger, who complained of his lot, Groethe wrote 
 in February, 1782 (L. 1,411): "There is not in our whole 
 country any single judicial office the occupant of which is not 
 sick of the very same complaint that you bewail yourself about. 
 No inferior post is either suited for a thinking man as we call 
 him, or calculated to allow of his enjoying, in any sense, a life of 
 refinement. Sturdy sons of this cooped in earth who can enjoy 
 eating their bread in the sweat of their brow are the only men 
 who are so constituted as to find it tolerable, and to produce 
 good and orderly work according to their capacities and virtues. 
 Every higher post is to that extent more unquiet, more laborious, 
 and less desirable." 
 
 And again in 1796 {Scholl II. 386), when Fritz Stein desired, 
 contrary to the wish of the Duke of Weimar, to enter the Prussian 
 service, Groethe wrote to his mother — "In my opinion Fritz is quite 
 
32 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 justified. A man who wishes to live, feels a decided impulse 
 in himself, and casts a free glance over the world, must avoid the 
 service of a small state as he would the grave. Such cramped 
 relations can only become interesting by a minute and con- 
 tinuous application {die hochate Consequenz) which makes 
 ihem seem like a magnified domestic economy." 
 
 And lastly from Italy he writes — "I cannot tell you how 
 much humanity I have gained in this short time. And 
 also how I feel what wretched solitary men we must be in the 
 small Sovereign States, inasmuch as one can hardly, and 
 especially in my position, talk with anyone who does not and 
 must not want something from me (der nicht etwas luollte und 
 TriAJgte)." 
 
 In July, 1776, Goethe expressed to Charlotte (L. 488) his 
 own guiding principle — " It remains eternally true that to limit 
 oneself, to thoroughly feel the want of a subject, of a few sub- 
 jects, and then to love them, to stick to them, turn them over 
 and over, identify oneself with them — this is what makes the 
 poet, the artist, the man." 
 
 And thirdly there was the difficulty which lay deeper than all. 
 When Goethe in 1781 took up Werther again he was struck with 
 the " expression at a glowing heat of pain and joy which cease- 
 lessly in turn consume each other." (L. 1364.) There is some 
 question how long the passionate fever of the soul which marked 
 that period lasted, but it certainly had not abated in the latter 
 days of his engagement to Lili, when he could write to the 
 Countess Stolberg in the strain which marks its highest point. 
 If, on the other hand, after Goethe reached Weimar, this corre- 
 spondence passed rapidly into one of humdrum friendship, and 
 then died out, and in 1781 Goethe could look back upon the 
 Werther stage as a thing of the past, it was in the main due to 
 his connexion with the Frau von Stein and the soothiDg influence 
 which their mutual affection exercised upon him. 
 
 If we try from the letters to form some idea of how the Frau 
 von Stein was able to influence Goethe to the extent that has 
 been indicated, it appears that in the first place it was by 
 providing him with society. Goethe, after the first burst at 
 Weimar, seems to have been wearied to death with court life. 
 He especially disliked visiting with the Duke at other courts. 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 33 
 
 where you sat six hours at table, and in the dreary palaces you 
 in winter froze on one side and roasted on the other, could never 
 get any ink, and sometimes could hardly get your own clothes. 
 His term for the privations and annoyances to which courtiers 
 were exposed was Hofnoth or Hofmiseria, and we find him 
 expressing his willingness to do anything in his power for the 
 entertainment of the Court, so long as he had not got to go to 
 Court to do it. With Charlotte he dropped in in the 
 morning, or sent a note ; looked in again after the Council 
 meeting at midday, and perhaps walked in in the after- 
 noon, and dropped in again in the evening. He com- 
 plains bitterly when she is away, is like an estate that 
 has lost its owner, like a coflfee drinker who has failed to 
 get his morning cup, and he counts the days to her return. 
 But when she is at home he is happy, so long, that is, as she is 
 pleased. When she is not pleased, she can pain him like fate, 
 can make his life a continual resignation, and write letters which 
 he opens with trembling, and which make him feel as if he has 
 been struck by lightning, or had passed through an earthquake. 
 
 And besides providing him with society, she encourages him in 
 steady and constant work. Before going to the Council he has 
 his official papers, which occupy some hours, and then the 
 Council meeting, for which he has prepared by reading them. 
 He has besides the scientific studies and the literary composition 
 which occupy his leisure hours, in all of which she takes a keen 
 interest, for the main secret of her influence is her sympathy. To 
 say that she was exacting, capricious, and a coquette is all beside 
 the point in face of the fact that for twelve years he clung to her 
 with the energy of desperation. The destruction of her letters 
 prevents our knowing in what terms she responded to his tender 
 appeals, but we need not assume from this fact anything to her 
 discredit. When Endymion has definitely gone off with Aurora, 
 Luna would naturally efface all signs of her perturbations, and 
 try to look as if nothing had happened. We know from his 
 letters that her sympathy extended to intellectual matters, and 
 the lady with whom he could study languages, discuss Spinoza, 
 read Strada's History, and look out a passage in Quintilian, be- 
 sides imparting to her his reflections on morals and art, must have 
 been, as Knebel expresses it, a very rare specimen of her sex. 
 
 D 
 
34 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 But ber sympathy and intellectual gifts would have scarcely 
 sufficed if she had not at the same time been able to set before 
 and get him to aim at an ideal which, even if in some respects 
 a mistaken one, was at least high and exacting. Groethe's 
 renunciation of flirting and gallantry w^as only the outward 
 symbol of the stern self-control which under her guidance he 
 aimed at. The letters throughout are full of this. He asks her 
 pardon for his transgressions, invokes her help, invites her 
 approval, and even in his letters from Italy, entreats her to bear 
 with him, not to harden her heart against him, but to help him 
 with her love in the crowning strife for self-mastery. 
 
 It is curious to observe how far devotion to the Frau von 
 Stein becomes a religion with Groethe. In the background we 
 have a reference to a power which sometimes appears as a God 
 or the gods, or at other times as Fate — the Schicksal which 
 Faust invokes. God deals with him as with His saints of old. The 
 way in which his life has been ordered for him is wonderful, it is 
 full of surprises. The gods mean to make a fine picture of him 
 seeing that they have set him in so costly a frame. But when 
 he comes to the Frau von Stein we are in a different world from 
 that of the young girls who had charmed him before — the 
 silver dishes in which he put his golden apples. As a woman 
 she is the only one that he knows in whom he can find all that he 
 needs without the idealising process, and it is not too much to 
 say that he exhausts the language of religious adoration in the 
 effort to give words to what she is to him. From the first she is 
 an angel. She is a Madonna ascending to Heaven. She holds 
 aloof, and he feels that he could preach on the text of Dives and 
 Lazarus. She must show her love, for faith lives by the heavenly 
 Manna of Sacraments. She sends him some dainty, and he 
 says that she feeds him by ravens, which shows that he is not 
 forgotten in Heaven. She is his Brazen Serpent, to whom he 
 looks and is saved. He wishes that there was some vow or sacra- 
 ment by which they might be united. Neither height nor depth 
 shall part them. He would like to give his life and hinaself into 
 her hands to receive them from her again. Her love works an 
 unspeakable conversion in his inner nature — new to him, but love 
 is inexhaustible. She is his Alpha and Omega. 
 
 These expressions are taken from letters written in the 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 35 
 
 earlier Weimar years, but in 1780 Goethe began the 
 study of physical geography and to observe the barometer 
 and thermometer, and straightway he breaks into a 
 new vein of similes — '' Say that you love me and replace the 
 light of the sun." "When the sun sets I have another which 
 never sets or hides itself." '* I cannot go back from your 
 atmosphere to that of common life." At this point he orders 
 a globe with the latest improvements — " Your love is like the 
 morning and evening stars before and after the sun. It is like 
 the Pole Star." " I am quite a barometer, but your love makes 
 a new climate." " The sun rules on high, but your love here 
 below." He has been reading Captain Cook's travels, and at 
 once Frau von Stein becomes his cork jacket. Thanks to her 
 love, he has no more tents and huts, but a good house. 
 
 I will now read you a few specimens of Groethe's letters of the 
 middle period, written when he was absent with the Duke in 
 March, 1781, at Neunheiligen, and therefore, longer than the 
 daily Weimar notes : — 
 
 L. 1149. — " We are used to jest at death, and yet feel it hard 
 to separate for a short time. When I was getting up, I could not 
 realise that I was dressing, and not intending to go to you. We 
 shall have a very bad ride, I doubly so, for my heart pulls me 
 and the wind drives me back. Adieu, my beloved. Grreet Stein, 
 your sister-in-law and Lingen, make Knebel well again, and love 
 me and do not neglect writing to me." 
 
 L. 1150. — " We have separated. I have put on my new night- 
 vest for the first time, and will send a few words by the driver, 
 who returns early to-morrow. The ride here was a bitter morsel, 
 especially the last hour, when there was a fine driving rain. The 
 Duke has a horrid cold. I feel very well, and we are quite com- 
 fortable here. I thank you a thousand times for the present 
 tokens of your love and all that you have given me to take away, 
 as well as what you promise me. I have invented two beautiful 
 similes in exchange. To-morrow if I am lucky I will do some 
 drawing for you. 
 
 " Our hostess is an exquisite being, and he has so far behaved 
 very well. T. assume that his eccentricity is well known, and up 
 to the present he has not shown himself mad. 
 
36 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 " I long for your dear eyes, which are more present to me than 
 anything else visible or invisible. I have never loved you so 
 much, and I have never been so near being worthy of your love. 
 Adieu, my best one. Greet the Waldner. Commend me to the 
 Duchess." 
 
 L. 1152. — " A hussar goes to-morrow — and I will give him this 
 note also for you. We get on very well. The day runs away 
 like life ; one does nothing, and does not know what becomes of 
 the time. The Duke has a horrid cold, which prevents his being 
 very interesting in society. I have got a touch of it — but yet 
 my ideas have for the most part freer play. 
 
 " She (meaning the Countess Werthern) is amiable, simple, 
 wise, kind, sensible, good, and so on, everything that you 
 wish, and her whole being is calculated to remind me of 
 what I love. To-day we draw. The Count has unusually 
 beautiful Everdingens, two of which I have begun. There 
 is a greatness and power in them which are a perpetual 
 refreshment. Besides this we read and talk, eat and drink. It 
 seems quite strange to me to have such inoffensive days. In 
 drawing I was again to-day quite unsatisfied with myself, nothing 
 comes of it and nothing can come. I am always so near and 
 yet so far, just as if I stood before a closed door. Do not omit 
 to send me a word by the hussar who is coming back. Bertuch 
 will just detain him so long. Tell me what I always want to 
 hear, that you love me, ever with a newer, fairer love. 
 
 ^^ Yesterday on the long journey I thought over our history, 
 which is wonderful enough. I compared my heart to the castle 
 of a robber knight which you have now taken possession of, 
 the rogues have been turned out, and now do you hold it worth 
 guarding. Only by jealously watching can one keep what one 
 has. Deal kindly with me and piously change the stone of wrath 
 into the stone of peace. (Schaffen Sie den Grimmenstein in 
 Friedenstein um.) You took it neither by force nor fraud, and 
 those who freely surrender must be treated nobly and their trust- 
 fulness rewarded. 
 
 '* Yesterday, too, everlasting simile-maker that I am, I told my- 
 self that you were to me just what an Imperial Commission is to 
 the princes of the Empire. You teach my heart which is sunk in 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 37 
 
 debts to become more economical, and to find its happiness in a 
 clear receipt and expenditure. Only, my best one, you differ 
 from all debt commissions in that you give me a richer compe- 
 tence than my resources could ever afford before. Garry on 
 your good work, and let every bond of love, friendship, necessity, 
 passion, and habit unite me daily closer to you. We are in fact 
 inseparable, let us ever believe and ever say so. Good-night. 
 You must have got my yesterday's letter by this time, and 
 to-morrow early you will get this. If you act promptly and 
 prettily, I shall be able on the next day to read in your writing 
 what I so deeply desire. Since the days go round so quickly 
 my hope of seing you again soon is lively. The Duke says that 
 his cold will not let him write. I feel that a hussar going 
 to Weimar affects me quite differently. Adieu. I have tied the 
 dear ribbon round my hand whilst writing, and kiss your hand a 
 thousand times in thought." 
 
 L. 1153.— "To-day an excursion is planned to Ebeleben, a 
 Schwarzburg country seat. Before starting I just despatch this 
 greeting to you and my wishes for 3'our welfare. Yesterday I 
 drew. Then came a visit from Langensalza, and the greatest part 
 of the day was spent in standing and conversing. If it were not 
 necessary to see men, of whatever kind they may be, I could 
 regret the nice time that they consume. I have begun an Ever- 
 dingen as is my wont on bad paper, and now that I am coming 
 to the end of it I am sorry for the labour spent. The rest, the 
 removal from all accustomed worries, suit me very well. I feel 
 that I am still at home within myself, and that I have not 
 broken in upon the capital of my resources. Yesterday early I 
 got your dear letter, the beautiful impress of your soul. I read 
 it over six times in succession and keep on reading it. I hope 
 that you will go on writing to me till my return. Whatever 
 you do for me is certainly labour well spent. 
 
 '* As to the Count I will not tempt fate, otherwise I must say 
 that he conducts himself very well. We have not yet had to 
 put up with any caprices (Sekkatur). The Duke declares that 
 he does not know him. 
 
 '* In her there is a correctness of judgment, an imperturbable 
 life, and a kindness which cause me daily great admiration 
 
38 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 and delight. She is very useful to the Duke, and would be 
 more so if the tangles in the strand of his nature did not 
 so much hinder any peaceful even winding up of the thread. 
 I have ceased to wonder at princes' being so mad, stupid and 
 silly {toll, dumm und alhern). It is rarely that anyone has 
 such good opportunities as the Duke, it is rarely that any 
 one has so many understanding and good men about him and 
 for his friends as he, and yet nothing will proceed in due propor- 
 tion, and the child and the fish's tail peep out again before one 
 is aware. The worst point of all, too, I have remarked, spite of 
 his passion for what is good and right, yet he is less at home 
 in it than in what is unseemly. It is quite wonderful how sen- 
 sible he can be, what insight he has, how much he know^s, and 
 yet when he desires to show himself to the best advantage he 
 cannot help making some display of folly, even if only in 
 biting the candles to pieces. Unluckily this shows that it lies 
 in the depths of his nature, and that the frog is made for the 
 water, even though he can make himself at home for some time 
 upon dry land. The time is nearly come for us to start, I ought 
 to have closed long ago. Farewell, my best one, and greet the 
 kind and dear ones. If you could find an opportunity of get- 
 ting back my literature from the Duchess, keep it for me I beg. 
 I should be much pleased if you could talk it over with her and 
 Herder, since I should prefer to hear from the lips of my beloved 
 what is said about it. In other respects I am as much at rest 
 as in a casket full of all sorts of jewels, money and papers which 
 is sunk in a well. Adieu. It shall all be kept for your behoof. 
 Greet also Fritz and Ernst. I must set out." 
 
 L. 1154. — " Your little pencilled note of last night has bid me 
 a good morning. We must not complain of the slowness of our 
 messengers. If the letter had only not been shut up in the 
 writing desk I might have received more from you. To-day is 
 Sunday. On Thursday morning I start from here, and shall reach 
 you in the evening, as I have to see something in Ringleben. 
 The Duke goes for a few^ days to Cassel, but I do not go with 
 him for many reasons, some of which I have told him and some 
 not. He is summoning Wedel, and I wish them a happy 
 journey. He reproaches me with not liking to go far from the 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 39 
 
 place where I am used to be fed. It may well be that this is 
 not the least of the ninety and nine reasons. 
 
 " Yesterday the rats began to manoeuvre, and as I am now well 
 prepared for all such in-and outlandish beasts I at once got hold 
 of some and dissected them to learn their internal constitution. 
 I observed the rest well, and noted how thev carried their tails, 
 in order to be able to give a good physiological account of it. I 
 hope in these few days to have some more scenes in order to get 
 an all round idea of the phenomenon. I am astonished at the way 
 in which what is clumsy is combined with what is most delicate. 
 I have not been so quiet for a long time, and when the eye is 
 light the whole body will be full of light, and vice versa. The 
 Countess has given me many new ideas and brought to a focus 
 what I had before. You know that I never learn anything 
 except by irradiation, that nothing but nature and the greatest 
 masters can bring anything within my comprehension, and that 
 it is quite impossible for me to grasp anything by halves or 
 singly ! How often have I had to hear the expressions 
 ' world ' ' great world ' * to have the world', and have never been 
 able to give any meaning to them. Most men who have laid 
 claim to such gifts have only made my idea more obscure. They 
 seemed to me to be like bad musicians who were playing on 
 their violias symphonies by masters of old. I could get some 
 vague intimation of these from this and the other air, but I tried 
 in vain to realise to myself the whole without hearing it played 
 by the full orchestra. 
 
 " This little being has enlightened me. She has luorld, or 
 rather she has the world. She knows how to handle the world 
 (la TYianier). She is like quicksilver, which in a second parts 
 itself into a thousand pieces and again runs together into a 
 globule. Assured of her worth, of her rank, she acts at once with 
 a delicacy and easy grace which one must see to form any idea 
 of. She seems to give to each what is good for him even when she 
 is giving nothing at all. She does not, as I have seen others do, 
 deal out to each as a little sealed and prepared parcel that which 
 befits his rank and station. She only lives her life in society, and 
 the beautiful melody which she plays just arises from her not 
 sounding every tone, but only those which she selects. And this 
 she does with such a lightness and apparent carelessness that 
 
40 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 one might hold her for a child who only runs her hands up and 
 down the piano without looking at the music, and yet she always 
 knows what and to whom she plays. She has in the art of life 
 that gift which in every art is genius. There are thousands who 
 seem to me like people who strive by diligence to supply what 
 nature has denied them. There are others like amateurs who 
 have learnt their little piece by heart and painfully give it out. 
 There are yet others — well, we shall have quite enough to talk 
 over. 
 
 " She knows the best part of distinguished, rich, beautiful, 
 intelligent Europe, partly at first hand, partly through others, 
 the life, doings, relations of so many men are present to her in 
 the highest sense of the word. All that she appropriates to her- 
 self from each one becomes her, and whatever she gives to each 
 man becomes him. You see that I tread lightly on all sides in 
 order with dead words, with a succession of expressive touches, to 
 depict a single living image. The best ever remains behind. I 
 have still three days and nothing to do but to observe her, and in 
 that time I will catch many more feature?. I will just add one 
 more which, like a parabola, is the beginning of an endless 
 curve. The parson here is a bad fellow, not bad enough to be 
 turned out, but suffice it to say that he is bad. If the Count 
 invites him she absents herself from table, and says that it is 
 right and necessary to show even openly that one despises a 
 man for his worthlessness. Add this to what 1 have said before, 
 and the sum is raised to an enormously high power. I would 
 gladly have painted you the Count's portrait so far as I have it, 
 and carried out the rat text still further, had I not, in respect 
 to this subject, been quickly seized by my natural aversion to 
 writing. This much 1 can say, that my dramatic and epic store- 
 house has been greatly enriched by him. I cannot be ruined, 
 seeing that I can change stones and earth to bread. 
 
 "Adieu, my dearest. I count the hours till Thursday night, not 
 impatiently (for I have my work cut out for me till then), but 
 with the calmness of serene love, and of the firm confidence that 
 I am not separated from you, and that at the appointed hour the 
 presence of my happiness will be there to receive me as if I had 
 never left it. Grood-bye ! Grive my regards to Stein and to all 
 who care for me. 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 41 
 
 " Adieu, sweet converse of my innermost heart. I see and hear 
 nothing good without instantly sharing it with you. All my 
 observations, too, about the world and myself are directed not 
 like those of Marcus Antoninus, to myself, but to my second self. 
 Through this dialogue, inasmuch as I think in each case what 
 you would say to it, all becomes clearer and more precious to 
 me. We have visitors to-day from Langensalza. I print a kiss 
 upon the seal, and am thine for ever." 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting question which Goethe's letters 
 suggest is, were the advantages which he purchased by his devo- 
 tion to the Frau von Stein too dearly bought ? 
 
 We must realise that in settling at Weimar he almost entirely 
 broke with his older friends. Herder he brought with him. 
 Lenz followed, but had to be dismissed. Merck's friendship, 
 which he shared with the Duke, was perhaps the most lasting 
 bond which remained with anyone at a distance. The letters to 
 Schlosser's wife ended, and Schlosser himself complained bitterly 
 of Goethe's sending him a dictated letter without even his 
 autograph. The dedication to Faust applied with literal truth 
 to his earlier circle of friends. His mother he corresponded 
 with to the last, but did not, as he admits, put himself much 
 out of the way to visit her. But she never took it amiss, and 
 when Frau von La Eoche came back like the Queen of Sheba 
 from the Court of Solomon, and related the wonders of Goethe's 
 house, declared that she felt as if the reflected glory surrounded 
 her own head with a nimbus. No man, as Goethe truly said of 
 himself, was ever more ready to say of those around him " These 
 are my father, and sister, and mother." 
 
 And this gradual withdrawal from intercourse, whether by 
 letter or association, with the outside world, and almost complete 
 restriction of himself to a small and very limited circle, though 
 it fell in with Goethe's natural inclination, yet, combined with 
 his resolute devotion to official business, brought its usual effects 
 with it. At one time he spoke of his association with the Frau 
 von Stein as having restored to him his old pleasure in doing 
 deeds of benevolence which he had almost lost, but in the long 
 run he recognised that he was becoming a stranger to all the 
 world but her : that her watchful jealousy hindered him from 
 
42 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 being friendly and polite {artig), and that for fear of offending 
 her he was in danger of eradicating even his last social impulses. 
 And even when away from Weimar she was always in his 
 thoughts. He was rehearsing what he should tell her and 
 anticipating the pleasure of hearing her comments. This, no 
 doubt, made him dull in society. Groethe must have been 
 meant when Karl August in December, 1780 {Scholl 1.444) 
 expressed to Knebel his uneasiness for " our Gr.," lest his 
 nature should become so ethereal that at last he should be unable 
 to breathe. 
 
 And, though he said little about it, there must have been the 
 haunting feeling that the love and society which he enjoyed 
 was enjoyed on sufferance, and not as something which he 
 could claim subject to the ordinary uncertainties of human 
 life. Goethe, no doubt, felt that in taking charge of Fritz he 
 was establishing something of a bond between them, but the 
 precariousness of his happiness often, as he tells her, moved him 
 to tears when he thought or even dreamt of the possibility of 
 his leaving her and going forth alone into the world. 
 
 And what, perhaps, he felt most of all was that his foun- 
 tain of inspiration as a poet was drying up. He had no 
 poetry left in him except that of loving her. Though born to 
 be a writer and not a minister, gifted not with wealth but with 
 confidence {Vertrauen), and good name and influence upon the 
 hearts of men, he was becoming reduced to a state in which 
 Knebel, Herder and Frau von Stein were almost his only public, 
 in which he wrote Tasso, but only wrote for her what he knew 
 she would appropriate, and longed to get away with her from 
 the world and live in retirement. 
 
 It must have been a rude shock to the Frau von Stein when 
 on September 3rd, 1786, Groethe started early from Carlsbad 
 for Italy. The Duke knew of his intention to start, but only 
 Philip Seidel knew his proposed route, and even his letters 
 written to her on September 2nd, September 18th, October 
 14th threw no light upon it. It was not till the middle of 
 January, 1787, that the first instalment of his diary cleared the 
 matter up. How bitterly she felt his conduct is shown by 
 different letters to her friends which it would be too long to 
 quote. Goethe's letters to her published for the first time in 1886 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 43- 
 
 enable us to see how he felt her reproaches, whilst they at the 
 same time dispose of the idea that in starting for Italy he had 
 any idea of breaking off a connexion of which he had grown 
 weary. In fact, he seems to have been strangely obtuse to the 
 interpretation which would naturally be put upon his action. 
 
 On November 24th he is expecting at Rome her first letter, 
 and then a series. On December 2nd, after promising that, 
 whilst descriptions are of little use, all that he can make his 
 own of what he sees shall be brought back for her, he says 
 '' You will, too, love your friend when he comes back to you all 
 the more, for, please God he will rid himself of some faults 
 which roused your discontent. I have never felt so vividly as 
 here that the man who aims at good must be as active — aye, and 
 active in nearly the same way — as the selfish, the petty, the bad 
 are. But it is hard to realise this: we have often spoken of it." 
 
 On December 8th Seidel forwards a note from her. Goethe 
 writes *' And this was then all that you had to say to a friend, a 
 beloved, who has long been yearning for a good word from you, 
 who has not passed a day — no, not an hour since he left you 
 without thinking of you. . . *' 
 
 " I do not tell yon how your note has rent my heart. Farewell, 
 you incomparable one, and do not harden your heart against me." 
 
 December 20th. — " Still no letter comes from you, and it seems 
 to me more and more probable that your silence is intended. I 
 will bear that too, and will think after all I have set the fashion. 
 I have taught her not to write. It is not the first lesson that 
 I have taught to my cost." And in the same letter, after speak- 
 ing of the new birth, not only in art but in morals, that he is 
 experiencing, he says " It would greatly lighten my task in this 
 wonderful critical era of my life if I received a friendly word 
 from you, for so far I have had to bear the weight of it all alone. 
 Yet I do not wish to force it from you ; follow your heart, and I 
 will end my course in silence." 
 
 December 23rd. — " Let me only just thank you for your letter. 
 Let me for a moment forget all its painful contents. My love I 
 My love ! I only beg you on my knees and entreat you to lighten 
 my return to you, that I may not remain an exile in the wide 
 w^orld. Forgive me generously for my wrong doing towards you 
 
44 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 and help me to stand upright. Tell me often and much about 
 your life ; that you are well and that you love me. In my next 
 letter I will write out the route which I propose, and which I 
 hope Heaven may bless. Only I beg you do not look upon me 
 as parted from you. Nothing in the world could replace for me 
 what I should lose in you, and in my relations there. May I 
 bring with me strength to bear in more manly fashion all that 
 crosses me. Do not open the chests, I beg of you, and throw off 
 your cares. Grreet Stein and Ernest. I thank Fritz for his 
 letter, let him often write to me. I have already begun to 
 collect for him, and he shall have what he wants and more too. 
 That you have been ill, and ill through my fault, wrings my 
 heart inexpressibly. Forgive me, for I myself strove with life 
 and death and no longer can tell what T felt. This shock has 
 brought me to myself. My love I My love ! '* 
 
 January 6, '87. — " This morning I received your bitter-sweet 
 letter of December ] 8. Oar correspondence goes on well and 
 regularly. May it never be again broken off so long as we live. 
 As to the sufferings which I have caused you, I can only say 
 forgive I I do not harden my heart, and am ready to give up 
 anything that I may be sound and healthy for me and mine. 
 Above all things, a clear confidence, an unvarying openness shall 
 bind me to you anew. ... I daily cast off a new husk, 
 and hope to return to you as a man. But do you too help 
 me and come to meet me with your love. ..." 
 
 January 17, '87. — "To-day comes your letter telling of the 
 arrival of my diary. How it has refreshed my heart ! Since 
 the death of my sister nothing has troubled me so much as the 
 sufferings which I have caused by my departure and silence. 
 You see how near my heart was to you. Why did I not send a 
 diary from every place I stopped at ? ... I could not write 
 any more from Eome. There is too great a mass of existence 
 pressing upon one. One can only let a transformation take place 
 in one, and cannot cling to previous ideas, without at the same time 
 being able to say in detail wherein the enlightenment consists." 
 
 January 20. — "Your letter of January 1st has reached me 
 and has brought me joy and sorrow. I can say nothing in 
 reply but that I have only one existence, and this I have this 
 
GOETHE AND FKAU VON STEIN. 45 
 
 time wholly played and am still playing. If I come out of my 
 trial sound in body and mind, and my nature, my spirit, my 
 fortune survives this crisis, I shall replace for you a thousand 
 fold what there is to replace. If I fail I fail, but without this 
 I should have been good for nothing more. . . . What is 
 life ! What are men ! You see from my earlier letters that I 
 return gladly and of my own free will ; that my spirit is only 
 longingly turned back to you. May I gain my wish ! " 
 
 In a letter from Eome, January 25th, we get rather a new note 
 struck, " From the Duke I have got a letter written from Mainz, 
 so gentle, beneficent, considerate, cheering and hearty, that as 
 far as he is concerned also I must appear most fortunately placed. 
 And I shall be, so soon as I learn to think of myself alone, if I 
 banish from my mind that which I have so long looked upon as 
 my duty, and thoroughly persuade myself that one should receive 
 the good which falls in his way as a piece of good fortune, turn- 
 ing neither to the right nor the left, and much less trouble, 
 himself about the good or bad luck of any whole. If a man can 
 be brought to this state of mind anywhere it is surely in Italy, 
 especially in Kome. Here, where in the midst of a collapse of 
 the commonwealth each one lives for the moment, each one 
 enriches himself, each one wants to and must build himself a 
 fresh hut out of the ruins." 
 
 " In the vast throng of ideas it is a pain to me to write, for 
 they are no disconnected observations and notions, they are con- 
 nected and hare all sorts of mutual relations, and extend their 
 range if I may say so every day. Happy should I be if I had 
 any dear one with me, to share my growth and to whom I 
 could impart my growing knowledge whilst it grows ; for at 
 last the resulting whole swallows up the delights of growth, 
 just as the inn at night does the toil and pleasure of travel. 
 
 " I could not help laughing over Frankenberg's caution that I 
 must not fall in love here. So far you have only one rival, and 
 her I am bringing with me, to wit a colossal bead of Juno. 
 
 *' My existence has now got a ballast which gives it the weight 
 it wants, and I no longer fear the spectres which have so often 
 played with me. Be of good courage ; So you will keep me 
 afloat and bring me back to you." 
 
46 GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 
 
 Kome, February. — "Greet dear Fritz, Ernest and Stein: 
 Hold me very dear, though I am so wayward, I have much in 
 myself to put up with ; so that I cannot excuse my friends from 
 bearing their share of it, and least of all you." 
 
 February 17th. — ''Love me! Grreet Fritz ! Support me with 
 your love even if you will not with your counsel. Greet Stein. 
 Your letters are all straightway burnt, though I do it very unwil- 
 lingly. But thy will be done." 
 
 Rome, February 21st (just before starting for Naples). — "I 
 cling to you with all the fibres of my being. It is cruel to 
 think what recollections often rend me. Ah, dear Lotte, you 
 little know what restraint I have put, and still put upon my- 
 self, and that the thought of not possessing you does in my 
 heart of hearts wear and consume me however I may take and 
 turn it. Whatever form I may give to my love for you, it 
 ever — ever, pardon me for once more saying to you what has so 
 long been suppressed in silence (stockt und verstummt). If I 
 could but tell you my feelings (Gesinnungen) the daily thoughts 
 of my most lonely hours. Farewell I I am to-day confused and 
 quite weak." 
 
 April 18th. — "What I am preparing for you is getting on 
 finely. I have already shed tears of joy at the thought that I 
 shall give you pleasure. Farewell, dearest, my heart is with 
 you. Now that the wide separation, the absence has at once 
 cleared away all that in the last times had produced constraint 
 between us, the fair flame of love, of truth, of remembrance 
 burns and shines again gladly in my heart." 
 
 The story of Goethe's return — a changed man to a somewhat 
 changed world — has been often told. The behaviour of Frau von 
 Stein was influenced by two main feelings, resentment at the 
 manner in which he had set off, and the presentiment that her 
 reign was at an end. The former had grown milder through 
 time, the latter seems to have been so strong as to be largely 
 responsible for producing the dreaded end. 
 
 Stripped of all extraneous circumstances, the matter was 
 decided by Charlotte's requiring as an ultimatum that Goethe 
 should break ofi" with Christiane and his definitely refusing to do 
 so. The Duke might relieve him from the yoke of official 
 
GOETHE AND FRAU VON STEIN. 47 
 
 slavery. His new works and old works re-published were 
 putting him again in touch with the public which had hailed his 
 earlier writings with delight. It would not be hard to extend his 
 circle of friends, and keep up the fuller social life from which he 
 he had retired, but Charlotte's affection, and sympathy, and help 
 had failed to bring him that sweetening of the blood which he 
 might have gained from a happy marriage if such had fallen to 
 his lot. The bird had tasted freedom, and would not enter the 
 cage again. 
 
3.— GOETHE, BUEGER, AND MULLNER, 
 
 ''iff Dr. a. W. ward. 
 Paper read Snl December, 1890. 
 
 The text of this reprehensibly slight contribution to the Transac- 
 tions of the Manchester Goethe Society is an extract from a 
 literary product of no recent date and of no great significance, 
 Schiitz's life of the dramatist Adolph Milliner, The book itself 
 is a rather vicious biography of a once-upon-a-time much over- 
 rated author ; but in the particular passage on which I have 
 founded this paper there is a fateful kind of coincidence which 
 arrested my attention, and may possibly for a few minutes engage 
 that of my hearers. Leaving Goethe out of the question for the 
 moment, there can be no doubt but that Burger was at one 
 particular time the lyrical, and Milliner, at another, the 
 dramatic favomrite of the German public at large. Their 
 popularity has suffered, although not in equal proportions, from 
 the lapse of time ; but neither uncle nor nephew will ever be 
 wholly forgotten by literary students, and their relations with 
 Goethe accordingly have an interest that need not be regarded 
 as altogether one-sided. 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1817, not long after, under 
 painful circumstances which are but too well remembered, 
 Goethe had relinquished the direction of the Weimar 
 Theatre, he received a visit from Mullner, the son of 
 Burger's youngest sister, and author of Die tSchuld and 
 other plays. Milliner was at this time himself already 
 near the end of his career as a dramatist; but he was 
 active as a journalist and editor of a paper called the 
 Mitternachtshlatt, In No. 119 of this journal he mentioned his 
 visit to " the creator of Faust,^^ adding that " on this as on former 
 occasions, he found so little of Philistine pretentiousness in his 
 host, that the joke did not occur to him of asking Goethe the 
 number of students in Jena (as Goethe had formerly asked Biirger 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 49 
 
 the number of those in Gottingen) ; although Biirger's nephew 
 might have fitly wreaked this little bit of vengeance on his 
 uncle's account." * 
 
 Eeaders of G. H. Lewes's biography will remember in one 
 of his later chapters f a sketch of Goethe's daily life and 
 habits in the years when the full maturity of manhood had not 
 yet been impaired by the first encroachments of old age. 
 Speaking of the visitors, whose constant succession was at once 
 a genuine pleasure and a serious penalty of fame, Lewes remarks 
 that, naturally enough, some of these visitors were interesting, 
 others uninteresting, and yet others pretentious, and that, as 
 Goethe treated them according to their kind, he was by some of 
 them thought charming, and by others stately even to stiffness. 
 
 " As these visitors were frequently authors, it was natural they 
 should merge their wounded self-love in criticisms and epigrams. 
 To cite but one example among many : Biirger, whom Goethe 
 had assisted in a pecuniary way, came to Weimar, and announced 
 himself in this preposterous style : " You are Goethe — I am 
 Biirger," evidently believing he was thereby maintaining his great/- 
 ness, and offering a brotherly alliance. Goethe received him 
 with the most diplomatic politeness, and the most diplomatic 
 formality ; instead of plunging into discussions of poetry, he 
 would be brought to talk of nothing but the condition of the 
 Gottingen University (where Biirger was in residence), and the 
 number of its students. Biirger went away furious, avenged this 
 reception in an epigram, and related to all comers the experience 
 he had had of the proud, cold, diplomatic Geheimrath. Others 
 had the like experience to recount ; and a public ever greedy 
 of scandal, ever willing to believe a great man is a small man, 
 echoed these voices in swelling chorus." 
 
 Lewes, in his well-known airy way, puts no date to this incident, 
 which he cites as illustrating Goethe's life about the year 1800; 
 though in point of fact poor Biirger's decease, hastened by his 
 largely self-inflicted troubles, preceded the close of the century 
 by more than six years. The unlucky interview occurred, and 
 
 * Schiitz, Aiullner^s Leben, forming vol. viii. of Milliner's Works (Brunswick and 
 
 Meissen, 1888-30.), p- 269. 
 
 t Page 43G of the 2ud edition (1864). 
 
 E 
 
50 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 the epigram provoked by it was written, some time in the 
 earlier half of 1789. Professor Dr. L. L. Althof, who in his 
 edition of Burger's poems published after the poet's death had 
 imitated his self-restraint in leaving the epigram unprinted, 
 was besought by Nicolai (who had heard the lines from Burger's 
 own lips) to favour him with a copy. That worthy utilitarian was 
 at the time engaged in " defending all German literature " 
 against " the impertinences of Messrs. Schiller and Groethe," and 
 was anxious for anything that might lend savour to his salt. 
 Althof, who was warmly attached to Burger (of whose son 
 Agathon he was guardian, and whose biography he wrote), 
 readily complied with the request. His letter to Nicolai of 
 December, 1796, first printed in 1872 and reprinted in 
 Strodtmann's standard edition of Burger's correspondence 
 (1874), gives a more elaborate version of the anecdote related by 
 Lewes. Burger and Groethe, he says, had never met, but had 
 formerly exchanged many letters. Goethe had begun this 
 correspondence, and, overcome by admiration and love for his 
 brother in Apollo, had soon come to address him by Di^ instead 
 of Sie. Burger reciprocated ; but when in course of time 
 Goethe was called to higher terrestrial dignities, the diction of 
 his letters to Biirger became more solemn ; from Du it returned 
 to Sie ; and soon the correspondence ceased altogether. In 1789 
 Biirger- despatched to Goethe a copy of the second edition of 
 his Poems, with a courteous letter, and soon afterwards set forth 
 on a tour which took him by way of Weimar. He hesitated 
 as to whether he should venture to call on Goethe, being himself 
 shy by nature, and, from what others had told him, not looking 
 forward to a particularly cordial reception from his ci-devant con- 
 fidential friend and correspondent. However, when his friends 
 encouraged him by the assurance that since his Italian journey 
 Goethe had become more affable, and as, moreover, at this 
 particular time he expected a modicum of thanks for the gift of 
 his Poems, and peradventure an instructive criticism of his most 
 recent productions, he gathered up his courage, and one fine 
 afternoon entered the minister's house. The servant at the door 
 said that his Excellency was at home, but that he was engaged 
 with Capellmeister Keichardt upon a musical piece com- 
 posed by the latter. " Capital ! " says Biirger, " then I have 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 51 
 
 arrived at a very opportune moment, and shall not detain his 
 Excellency from affairs of State ; possibly I may be able to give 
 him my opinion about the music." So he requested to be 
 announced. Then follows an account of the interview sub- 
 stantially identical with that given by Lewes, omitting, however, 
 the improbable piece of bounce, *'Ich bin Burger," &c., 
 which, if authentic, would have more than justified the 
 supposed rebuff that ensued. At the close of the visit, 
 Biirger having risen from his sofa as soon as he could, Groethe 
 remained standing in the middle of the room, and dismissed his 
 visitor with a gracious bow. Biirger on his way home composed 
 the celebrated epigram, of which I attempt in a note a trans- 
 lation which I hope more or less represents the spirit of the 
 original. I have not touched the idiom of the concluding line.* 
 
 * See Strodtmann, iv., 271 : 
 
 Mich drangt es in ein Haus zu geh'n, 
 Drill wohnt ein Kiinstler und Minister. 
 Den edlen Rilnstlcr wollt' ich seh'n 
 Und nicht das Alltagssfciick Minister ! 
 Doch steif und kalt blieb der Minister 
 Vor meinem trauten Kiinstler steh'n ; 
 Und vor dem holzernen Minister 
 Kriegt' ich den Kiinstler nicht zu seh'n 
 Hoi' ibn der Kukuk und sein Kilster ! 
 
 My heart's wish was to pay an early call 
 
 Where a great poet dwelt and Cabinet-Minister. 
 
 I wished to see the poet, — not at all 
 
 That every-day concern, the Cabinet-minister. 
 
 But starch and stiff stood forth the Cabinet-minister, 
 
 While my beloved poet kept the wall. 
 
 And, it befell, the wooden Cabinet-minister, 
 
 Shut out the poet. So I left the hall 
 
 But not without an imprecation sinister. 
 
 I have cited Althof s version, communicated by him to Nicolai, and reprinted 
 op. Strodtmann, iv.,271. Schiitz's has a few unimportant variations. This is 
 not the occasion for speculations concerning the origin of the phrase " der Kukuk 
 und sein Kilster.''' As everybody knows, '' tbe cuckoo " is a euphemism, still 
 used in comparatively kindly objurgation, for " the vulture " — in its turn a 
 euphemism for the name of a personage generally coupled on such occasions with 
 his own grandmother. In whatever uncanny Cock-Eobniad Biirger had first 
 found the combination, it seems to have taken his fancy. See his Neue weltliche 
 hochdeutsche Reime (Europa) , st. 8 .- 
 
 Zilrnt nicht ! Es regt sich hie 
 In meinem Wolfstornister 
 
 Der Kuckuek und sein Kiister, 
 Em Kobold, heisst Genie. 
 
 Dem schafft's gar guten Friedeii 
 
 Wem Gott solch Ding beschieden. 
 
52 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 On June 19th, 1789, Goethe wrote from Weimar to Burger 
 in the following terms : — 
 
 " You made me a pleasant gift in the new edition of your writ- 
 ings, and I thank you very sincerely (recht sehr) for this remem- 
 brance. Unfortunately the other day you made so short a stay 
 ■with us that I could not enjoy the pleasure of your conversation 
 as I might have wished. 
 
 " With kind regards and all good wishes, 
 
 V. Goethe." * 
 
 Althof's narrative, though he seems to have been an honour- 
 able and kind-hearted man, was in one respect inaccurate. 
 In their former correspondence, it was Burger, and not 
 Goethe, who had first adopted the style of Du, which in the 
 days in question was almost de rigueur between persons of 
 genius. But this is of little moment. It may also be ques- 
 tioned whether Biirger's assumption that his Excellency would, 
 as a matter of course, welcome him because he was on the point 
 of discussing the composition of a piece of music (very possibly 
 one of his own songs) was altogether felicitous. But, even 
 allowing for Biirger's gaucherie in this and possibly in other 
 respects, and allowing for the probability that in this year 1789 
 Goethe's serenity was more apt to be ruffled than at most periods 
 of his life (it was the year of the virtual rupture between Frau 
 von Stein and himself, after she had discovered his relations with 
 Christiane Vulpius), it cannot be denied that the anecdote leaves 
 a painful impression. Such considerations as the above are mere 
 palliations, and not worth seriously taking into account. 
 
 Leaving them aside, and dealing with the obvious facts of the 
 incident as it stands, who would be so childish as to quarrel with 
 Goethe for maintaining in such cases a certain reserve which in 
 the particular instance there was enough to explain and to excuse ? 
 But when the careers and achievements of the two poets are 
 remembered, a contrast in itself melancholy enough, and which 
 could not but be present to the minds of both, is tinged with a 
 sadder irony. The one stood on the threshold of the other's house, 
 
 * See Strodtmann, III., 239. I have purposely translated the concluding phrases 
 " Lehen sie wohl und behalten mich in geneigtem Andenken " loosely. A literal 
 translation would probably imply more than was intended to be conveyed. 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 53 
 
 and on the eve, too, of the utter wretchedness of his last years, — 
 no doubt a very imperfect image of the Tasso whom Groethe was 
 then shaping into an immortal type of an everlasting struggle. 
 Burger, although born only a year and a half before Goethe, 
 strikes us as belonging to an earlier literary generation than that 
 of which he actually formed part, chiefly, I think, because of his 
 association with a group of poets who revered Klopstock as the 
 regenerator of German poetry, and who are sometimes supposed 
 to have all more or less sworn allegiance to him as their master. 
 But in truth this association was founded in local rather than in 
 personal affinity; and many of the other Gottingers besides 
 Biirger were intent upon the pursuit of quite different ideals 
 from those presented to them by the Chief Bard of the Hain- 
 bund. Biirger, a genuine precursor of the great romantic school, 
 which neither in Germany nor in Europe at large can be neatly 
 fitted into a narrowly defined period of literary history, drew his 
 best inspirations from sources at once popular and perennial — 
 from the very depths of the sentiments and instincts, as well as 
 of the legends, written and unwritten, of the people. Pos- 
 sibly, had he been so fortunate as to be able to neglect 
 the preferences of his public, he might even within this 
 range have devoted himself more largely to purely lyrical 
 poetry, in which his best efforts challenge comparison with the 
 masterpieces of Goethe and Heine themselves. But he was,, 
 very naturally, tempted to essay a line of composition suggested 
 by the taste for the ballad poetry of former centuries, to which 
 Percy's Reliques and kindred publications had given so irresis- 
 tible an impulse. His Lenore, as Byron might have said, was 
 his Marengo. Unfortunately, the extraordinary recklessness 
 and the unmistakable vulgarity that were alike inborn in him, 
 combined with a facility of versification which he had assidu- 
 ously cultivated from his earliest youth, served to prevent him from 
 duly husbanding his precious talent. He not only, it is undeniable, 
 had a genuine sense of form ; but he loved the use of the file, 
 and applied it unceasingly to his Lenore, and to other of his 
 most celebrated ballads. What lacked he yet ? Simply the 
 refinement of mind and the t-rue elevation of spirit which ought 
 not to be left out of the calculation. Bad example and doubtful 
 precept in his earlier manhood contributed their degrading influ- 
 
54 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER, 
 
 ences ; and, as his life went on, he subjected himself to an almost 
 systematic perversion of those influences which if simply received 
 steady both mind and soul. Thus, his sensuality became super- 
 sensual and sickening, or heeled over into brutal coarseness ; and 
 he could only accompany the nobler developments of German 
 ballad-poetry in which he might have borne a part equal to 
 that of all but the very first, from the gallery, whose tastes 
 were precisely suited to his travesties. Thus it came to pass, 
 that in his verse at large the dross is not easily to be separated 
 from the gold ; and that he must be remembered as a poet who 
 prostituted the best part of himself. 
 
 But my point at present is simply this. Biirger, who for a 
 time was certainly as a lyrical poet the first favourite of his 
 people, in his most characteristic worth showed himself, not 
 a disciple of Klopstock, still less a comrade of his estimable 
 correspondent Father Grieim, but rather a co-mate in the Sturm 
 oMiid Drang of Groethe's own younger days. Perhaps Goethe 
 himself has helped to keep up an impression to the contrary. 
 " The two Counts Stolberg," he says* " Biirger, Yoss, Holty and 
 others were in faith and spirit gathered round Klopstock." But 
 these writers were in truth almost as much followers of Goethe 
 himself as of Klopstock ; and at the famous Gottingen meeting 
 in honour of Klopstock, where Wieland's Idris is said to have 
 been burnt, Goethe's health is reported to have been drunk. 
 Biirger underwent most of the chief influences derived from 
 foreign literature which affected the rest of this young genera- 
 tion — Percy's Reliques, as has been seen, and Ossian and Homer 
 and Shakspere. In 1773, when, with extraordinary diligence 
 and with a tenacity of imagination not less remarkable, he was 
 composing his Lenore bit by bit, day by day, and week by week, 
 he hailed Gotz with rapture. " This Gotz von Berlichingen" 
 he writes, " has again inspired me with three new stanzas of 
 Lenore. Sir, she shall in her way be equal to Gotz in his. But 
 it will take two months and more to finish her. Ha! how the 
 fools will make mouths at me in consequence ! But what's that 
 to me ? Free ! subject to nobody but nature ! " This was the 
 spirit in which Burger wrote (or, as the very expletive shows, 
 
 * Wahrheit und LichUing, Bk. xii. 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 55 
 
 worked himself up into fancying that he wrote) his famous ballad 
 — a ballad of the borderland between two worlds, for one of which 
 every man must be left to chose his own designation. Groethe, 
 we know, tells us that he wrote Gotz in order to get rid of the 
 revolutionary ideas with which he had been infected — desiring 
 to show how in bad times a mere man may defy law and order, 
 but not without breaking his own heart in the process. But at 
 the time they still believed themselves animated by cognate 
 impulses and working in genuine sympathy. The Gottinger 
 Musenalmanach, of which Biirger was a chief supporter, 
 though he only at a later date became its editor, admitted 
 some of Groethe's most charncteristic Pindarics, the Wanderer, 
 Mahomefs Gesang, &c. Nothing could be more straight- 
 forward, more cordial — more honest, to employ Biirger's own 
 expression, than the letter which accompanied Groethe's gift 
 to Biirger in February, 1774, of the second edition of 
 Goetz* In February, 1775, there is another genial letter 
 from Groethe alluding (in a safely general way) to Eurojpa 
 and the Rauhgraf (two examples of Biirger in high spirits, 
 and in his shirt sleeves), f Biirger's answer keeps up the vein 
 of an earlier letter of the same year, in which he had 
 impartially prostrated himself before Shakespeare's actual and 
 Goethe's prospective remains. As late as October of the same 
 year, a few weeks before Groethe's departure for Weimar, he wrote 
 to Biirger in the old tone. % Biirger's voluble correspondent, 
 Blester, may have been perfectly genuine in congratulating him 
 on receiving a letter from so grand a gentleman ; but the possi- 
 bility of a rift seems to announce itself behind this appeal to a 
 time-honoured chord. In 1776 Groethe was settled in Weimar, 
 and Biirger's letter (or draft of a letter) to him in January of 
 this year is, with all its semblance of homage, an uncom- 
 
 * See Strodtonann, I.. 194 : "It seems to me rather a feather in mv cap, that it is 
 I who break down the paper wall which separates us. Our voices have often met, 
 and our hearts with them. Is life not short and dreary enough ? Shall not they 
 embrace whose ways go together? 
 
 " Send me anything you may be writing. I will do the same. That's the way to 
 take heart. You will only show it to friends— friends after your own heart, and so 
 will I. And I promise never to copy anything." 
 
 t Strodtmann, I., 221-2. J lb., 230, 219. 
 
56 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 fortable performance.* Goethe, whose troubles were of a less 
 searching kind than his friend's, sought to comfort the latter by 
 a copy of his Stella^ an odd gift to one who was making an 
 attempt to solve the unlucky problem of that drama in its own 
 unlucky way. But, as Mr, Lewes states in an earlier passage of 
 his biography, thereby helping to impugn the legendary notion of 
 Goethe's life in the early Weimar years, upon which our President, 
 Mr. Cornish, has so shrewdly commented, Goethe at this very 
 time was doing more for Biirger than encouraging him in 
 bigamy.§ Besides urging him publicly to complete his version 
 in German iambics of the Iliad, by means of a manifesto in the 
 Deutsche Merkur of February 7th, 1776, that could not but be 
 gratifying to Biirger, and besides privately encouraging him in his 
 design, he started a subscription in which Karl August and the 
 ducal family took part, and which was designed to secure to the 
 translator a considerable yearly revenue, if he would only 
 promise to undertake the task. The fates were, however, 
 against it ; and Goethe is not to be blamed if he was one of the 
 first to accept the new gospel of a German Homer in hexameters, 
 a metre which his own genius was to vindicate to the literature 
 of his nation. || 
 
 So much as to the unmistakable, and anything but simulated, 
 interest which Goethe, both before and after his migration to 
 Weimar, showed in the literary career of his contemporary and 
 correspondent, to whom in the above-mentioned recommendation 
 of his project of a translation of Homer, he ascribes " the great- 
 est talents for epical poetry " {die grossten epischen Anlagen). I 
 refrain from any attempt to estimate the influence which either 
 particular poems of Biirger, or any general tendencies which 
 they exhibited, may have exercised upon Goethe's own poetic 
 productivity. A comparison of dates between the Erlkonig and 
 
 ♦ Strodtmann, I.. 244. f IK 266. \ lb., 273. 
 
 § G-. H. Lewes, n.s., p. 216. See Goethe's letter, written some time in the spring 
 of 1776, Strodtmann, I., 293. 
 II I abstain from any criticisms on Burger's efforts, which might carry me too far 
 into a dangerous sea. His blank verse is wanting neither in conciseness of dic- 
 tion nor in harmony of modulation ; but it lacks variety, more especially of end- 
 ings, and (whether or not Homer's verse be monotonous) Biirger's verse is 
 monotonous in its own way. 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 57 
 
 Biirger's Lenardo und Blandine " might be instructive as to the 
 former issue ; but I am unable to enter into it here. At all 
 events, it seems to me false criticism to suggest that upon 
 Goethe's ballad poetry, so sinnig and so innig, the elaborated 
 fervour of Burger's work should have exercised any more impor- 
 tant influence than it did upon the magnificent creative art of 
 Biirger's severest critic, Schiller. But this has little to do with 
 the question at issue. 
 
 Things went worse with Biirger as the years went on. 
 About 1781, pluno^ed deep in pecuniary as well as other difficul- 
 ties, he was, in bitterness of heart, soliciting employment from 
 more than one potentate, and inter alios made application to 
 Karl August, who in Merck's company had paid him a visit in 
 the previous year. Once more, Groethe seems to have interested 
 himself in his behalf ; but, for reasons unknown, the application 
 came to nothing. 
 
 A letter which Goethe wrote to Biirger in the course of this 
 transaction is preserved ; and though its tone is unmistakably in 
 some measure official, while the formal Sie is used in it as a 
 matter of course, it cannot fairly be described as either unreason- 
 able or unkind. The writer points out that in any case such an 
 official position as could be secured for Biirger would barely 
 support him, and asks as an indispensable preliminary for a 
 specification of his wishes and his qualifications, f Biirger's 
 answer, a few months later, is pathetically humble and fairly con- 
 scientious, t Not long afterwards he had very nearly succeeded in 
 obtaining an appointment under the great Frederick himself, who 
 was of opinion that something ought to be done for so celebrated 
 a man ; but Zedlitz intervened with the advice not to undermine 
 the energy of the rising generation by naming poets to posts of 
 educational responsibility. Finally, Biirger once more took up 
 his abode at Gottingen, where, although he had been named 
 Professor Extraordinary, he was scon in want, no salary being 
 attached to this dignity. Moreover, he had brought about 
 his banishment from society by the life which he had led. His 
 second wife, the " Molly " who paid so dearly for her poetic 
 
 * Biirger's works (1844) I., 141 seq. See Stanza XV, 
 t Sfrodtmmn, III., 39. I Uk 156-8. 
 
58 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 immortality, was by this time dead ; and he had not yet com- 
 mitted the folly of accepting the proffered hand of the third, the 
 ingenuous Schwabenmddchen who completed his ruin. 
 
 The above are so far as I know the main passages in 
 the relations between Goethe and Biirger that were worthy of 
 note, but I am not aware that they demand much further com- 
 ment. There is no reason for wonder that Groethe should not 
 have received with open arms, in his own house, a man of letters 
 who had continued to give so much offence to so many people, and 
 whose genius seemed not unlikely to run to seed, as his character 
 and his fortunes had done. Although Biirger had not exactly been 
 the friend of Goethe's youth, he had been part of it ; but at times 
 such remembrances in the form of a survival are the reverse of 
 desirable. Still, I repeat, it was a melancholy, though perhaps an 
 inevitable, incident which excited Biirger's spleen. The Cabinet- 
 Minister and his visitor had at one time shared the same ideals, and 
 even talked the same jargon ; and if their friendship had been 
 more or less of a figment, they had made honest war in common 
 upon the same real foes, — artificiality, stagnation, and cant. 
 
 The brief history of the relations between Goethe and Burger's 
 nephew, Ad olph Milliner, may serve as an afterpiece, of a slightly 
 farcical type, to the above sketch. Miillner was in his time a 
 prophet, both in his own country and beyond its boundaries. To 
 the good town of Weissenfels he was true from his youth upwards ; 
 there he was born, there (in a neighbourhood associated with many 
 mighty wars), he heard the guns of Jena, and there he died. His 
 celebrity as a dramatist cannot be said to exhaust his literary 
 reputation; he lived in an age that over-indulged itself in 
 criticism^ but he was by no means ineffective as a critic. Person- 
 ally, he seems to have had little in him that was lovable, and 
 least of it in his home, herein contrasting with Biirger, 
 among whose many patent faults ignobility of soul is 
 assuredly not to be reckoned. Of the productions which for 
 a time gave to Mullner's name a fama that blushed it 
 through the West, a criticism would be out of place here. 
 Nobody pretends that either in Die Schuld,ov in its cruder and 
 more repulsive predecessor Der 29. Febritar (to leave out of 
 question his early inanities and Die Albaneserin, with w^hich he 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 59 
 
 shut up shop), there is any attempt at dramatic characterisation, 
 or at a connexion between the characters and the action of the 
 plays. In these directions the measure of his success is about 
 the same as that of our gifted novelist. Miss Braddon. He 
 displays, in addition, a formal gift to which sufficient justice 
 has not, perhaps, always been rendered ; for my part, I 
 cannot but entertain a kind appreciation of trochaic couplets 
 so difficult to eradicate from the memory after their crisp brisk- 
 ness — or brisk crispness — has established a hold upon it. But, of 
 course, the success of those of Milliner's plays which have 
 secured to his name a place in the history of Gferman literature 
 was due to a single element of interest. This was the use made 
 by him, and by the dramatists who belonged to the school most 
 prominently represented by himself, of the Schicksalsidee — the 
 " motive " of destiny, as they chose to interpret it. One may 
 pass by the suggestion that not only Milliner, but others of his 
 Mitstrebende, had been trained to the practice of the criminal 
 law, and '' wrote and thought" under the influence of its atmo- 
 sphere. This practice possibly sharpened their outlook for those 
 coincidences which, when they occur in actual life, take away our 
 breath, make our hair stand on end, and tempt us to send articles 
 to the editors of the most modern kind of reviews. But at the 
 bottom of the tendency of the " school " lay a childlike desire to 
 place in juxtaposition with the decrees of '^ fate " — blind, and 
 perhaps for that reason fond of the chances of blind man's buff — 
 the fixed ordinances of established systems of religion. I have 
 not read the novel with which at the age of twenty-five Mullner 
 virtually commenced his literary career ; but its cheerful title, 
 Incest, indicates a disposition to play with this kind of fire. His 
 more celebrated dramatic pieces exhibit the same inclination, and 
 very little else that seems noteworthy, besides the gift of versi- 
 fied diction already mentioned, and an unmistakable theatrical 
 instinct matured by experience. I cannot undertake to analyse 
 the claims of other writers contemporary with Milliner to be 
 ranged by his side as fellow-sectaries, or distinguished from him. 
 So far as they were guided by common conceptions, it may be 
 averred of them that they were equally unable to rise to such 
 a conception as the Sophoclean reconciliation of QEdipus him- 
 self to his doom, and to enter into the Shakesperean process 
 
60 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 of drawing forth a man's destiny from his character. But 
 my own small reading makes me hesitate to draw "over a 
 single last " any number of writers whose fate it is to be classi- 
 fied in the same section of a literary handbook. Why, for 
 instance, should so true a poet and so genuine a dramatist 
 as Grillparzer be associated with Milliner, because of a 
 single one of his plays, if indeed of more than a part 
 of it ; or why should the same sentence be pronounced even 
 upon the virtual father of the species (so far as German litera- 
 ture is concerned)," Zacharias Werner, in whom with all his 
 eccentricity there was a touch of genius ? As for Houwald, he 
 was a playwright of the fertile type of Thomas Heywood, and 
 accountable (or unaccountable except to the pit) accordingly. 
 As for Milliner himself, his at one time overflowing measure of 
 success is the more remarkable, when it is remembered that he 
 hardly resolved upon becoming a man of letters before his 
 creative vein was near drying up. f He had little of any kind 
 in common with the literary world in which he suddenly found 
 himself a notability, and least of all was it in his power, how- 
 ever much it might be his wish, to establish relations of mutual 
 respect and confidence with the true leaders of that world. 
 
 When, on Goethe's withdrawal from the direction of the 
 Weimar Theatre in 1817, it occurred to Mullner to pay a visit to 
 him in his retirement at Jena, he seems to have been already 
 personally known to " the creator of FausV^ Weimar is not far 
 from Weissenfels, and Milliner was a man of good position before 
 he became a literary celebrity. As such he must have excited 
 some curiosity in Goethe, although there is no reason to believe 
 that it rose to the height of the interest to which he gave 
 expression in the case of Zacharias Werner. % No doubt there was 
 much in the life and writings of the latter to stimulate as well 
 
 * Der vier-und-zwanzigste Fehruar was a version of the story treated by Lillo in 
 his Fatal Curiosity (1736), and after hicu by two German dramatists before 
 Werner. 
 
 t I have not noticed in Milliner any trait of his uncle's great lyric power. In 
 Der 29. Febrvar a commonplace lyric is rather absurdly introduced which reminds 
 one of ignore— but not more closely than do3s The Diverting History of John 
 Gilpin. 
 
 X See the notice on English periodical literature contributed by Goethe to Ktmst 
 und Alterthum (Works XXIX., 776), which offers a noteworthy illustration of the 
 
GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 61 
 
 «is to vex ; nor did Goethe altogether discredit his own insight 
 when, at the risk of being rumoured to have inspired the subject 
 of Der vier-und'Zwanzigste Fehruar, he went out of his 
 way to suggest its general treatment, and gave the author 
 an opportunity of producing the play in the year 1811, in the 
 Weimar Theatre.''' Four years later (on September 16th, 1814) 
 Milliner's Schuld was acted in the same place, and the reference 
 to this performance in the Tag-und Jahreshefte f is, so far as 
 I am aware, Groethe's only extant mention of the play. " In the 
 theatre Milliner's Schuld was produced. Whatever may be 
 thought of the play in other ways, it possesses this great advan- 
 tage from a theatrical point of view, that each actor has to use 
 his utmost exertions and to do his very best, in order to appear 
 at all equal to his part." The remark is perfectly just. The style 
 of Milliner's tragedy, at once sombre and stilted, and absolutely 
 artificial, can only be preserved from breaking down by the actor's 
 art — never more conspicuously needed and (if experience is to be 
 trusted)never more successfully given than in analogous instances. 
 As literary work, MuUner's best-known plays not so much hover 
 on the brink of parody, as wantonly beckon it on. J But even so, 
 it could not but interest Groethe as a contribution to the problem 
 on the use of the idea of fate as a dramatic motive. This problem 
 was dealt with by Milliner's friend, Henry Bliimner, who was a 
 lawyer like himself, but had qualified for his degree at Leipzig in 
 1788 by a dissertation on the Oedipus Rex, in an essay on the 
 
 extraordinary breadth and brightness of his literary sympathies in the closing 
 years of his life. "The Edinburgh Eeview,^' Goethe writes, " seems to deal both 
 seriously and fairly with Werner's life and writings " ; but he is free to confess 
 that " we " lack the courage requisite for subjecting to a calm and consecutive 
 treatment by way of narrative or criticism such a congeries as this of merits, 
 mistakes, follies, talents, blunders, extravagances, and movements of piety and of 
 daring. " From these we have had to suffer bitterly during many a year now 
 past ; although an honest human sympathy was not wanting in us." 
 
 * See J. Minor's Introduction to Das Schicksalsdrarua (^Berlin and Stuttgart, 
 n.d.), to which the reader must be referred for further particulars on the subject. 
 
 t 1814 ; see Works (edition of 1858), XXL, 221-2. 
 
 X But to be parodied, or burlesqued, is one of the avenues to fame. I have not 
 read Ludwig Stahlpanzer (A. Eichter's; Eumenides Duster (Brunswick, 1828), but I 
 can without difficulty imagine it. It is about contemporary with Platens Aristo- 
 phanic comedies, which flew at higher game, or at least intended a hattiie. 
 
62 GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 Fate-idea in the Tragedies of ^schylua (Leipzig, 1814), where 
 he directed attention to the confused treatment of this idea by 
 the modern dramatic poets of the group to which Miillner 
 belonged. Goethe read the book and made use of it for his own 
 enquiries concerning Shakespeare's use of the idea.'* Thus 
 Miillner, as a writer of his criminalistic training might have 
 said, was decidedly in evidence. 
 
 The rest is obscurity. Milliner's pleasant picture of Goethe's 
 serene condescension at a time of much personal suffering may 
 be contrasted with Biivger's epigram, without any attempt at 
 establishing a balance between them. Biographical studies are 
 frequently of trivial import, even when they concern an illustrious 
 name ; but their value is rarely enhanced by trying to tack on 
 to them a moral. 
 
 * See J. Wahle, Das Weimarer Hoftheater unter Goethe's Leitung {Schriften der 
 GoBthi'Gesellschaft, vi. Band, Weimar, 1892), p. 290. The paper by Goethe 
 referred to is " Shakepeare und kein Ende," Works XXVIII., 729-41. 
 
4.— GOETHE'S " IPHIGENIE." 
 
 . By Dr. A. S. WILKINS. 
 Paper read 24th March, 1888. 
 
 I NEED not waste your time with any eulogy on Goethe's 
 Iphigenie auf Tauris. It is universally admitted to be one of 
 the most exquisitely finished and perfect pieces of modern 
 poetry. If it is less popular and less generally familiar than 
 some other of his works, this is only because the subject is less 
 attractive to the common taste. For artistic skill in construc- 
 tion, for pathetic situations, for purity of diction, for ease of 
 metre, for elevation of sentiment, finding expression in many a 
 line that has become proverbial, the Iphigenie stands almost 
 without a rival in the German drama. It is only to one side of 
 the criticism of this play that T venture this evening to invite 
 the attention of the Society. The theme is one drawn from the 
 storehouse of Greek legend : it is one already treated by one of 
 the great Greek tragedians. Comparison is inevitable, and it may 
 possibly be instructive. Have we in Goethe's play a reproduc- 
 tion of a Greek tragedy, a work from which those who are not 
 familiar with the masterpieces of the Athenian drama may form 
 a just conception of what that was to those for whom it was 
 written, or more exactly, played ? Some have been found to 
 answer this question with an affirmative. Not only does Mme. 
 de Stael find in it the spirit of Greek tragedy ; but a meritorious, 
 I had almost said a professional critic of the drama has expressed 
 the same opinion, for W. Schlegel calls it " an echo of Greek 
 song," and the phrase has been repeated by many an enthusiastic 
 admirer. On the other hand, it has been urged that nothing but 
 the plot is Greek, and that this is an accident : that the spirit 
 and execution of the whole is " astonishingly modern and un- 
 Greek, and that everything which specifically belongs to a 
 dramatic work is wanting," These are the words of no less com- 
 petent a judge than Schiller. It is evident that here there is 
 
64 Goethe's "iphigenie." 
 
 matter for debate ; and I shall be well content if I can so put the 
 question to the students of Goethe that they may have the 
 material on which to form a judgment for themselves. 
 
 Perhaps it will be well that I should in the first place give you 
 some outline of the plot of the play by Euripides, that we may 
 see the material which Goethe had before him. The story is 
 based upon the well-known legend which tells how the Greek 
 fleet gathered for the siege of Troy was detained at Aulis by a 
 calm or by contrary winds, until Agamemnon consented to avert 
 the displeasure of Artemis by the sacrifice of his daughter 
 Iphigeneia. Before the sacrifice was complete, the goddess, 
 substituting a hind for the maiden, bore away the latter in a 
 cloud to the shores of the Tauric Chersonese, and there made her 
 priestess to the deity to whom she had been devoted. There, in 
 accordance with the barbarous usage of the Taurians, one of her 
 duties was to prepare for sacrifice any strangers who might be 
 cast upon the coast. In this service many years had passed 
 away. During this time Agamemnon had returned victorious 
 from Troy, only to fall a victim in the hour of triumph by the 
 treachery of his wife Clytsemnestra, who alleged in excuse the 
 sacrifice of her daughter Iphigeneia, aided by her paramour 
 Aegisthus. Orestes, the only son of Agamemnon, had been 
 secretly conveyed away from Mycenae to the court of Stropheus, 
 where he had grown up to manhood in closest friendship with 
 Pylades, the son of his protector. He had returned along with 
 his faithful friend to take vengeance on Clytsemnestra and 
 Aegisthus ; but although he slew them in accordance with the 
 bidding of Apollo, he had not escaped the pursuit of the 
 Furies, who punish a crime like matricide. He had been driven 
 by them up and down the land of Greece ; and in the form of 
 the legend followed by Euripides even the famous trial before 
 the Areopagus at Athens, which in the Eumenides of Aeschylus 
 results in his acquittal and purification, did not bring him 
 peace. But an oracle of Apollo had promised him final deliver- 
 ance, if he carried away from the land of the Taurians the 
 wooden statue of Artemis and brought it to Athens. The action 
 of the drama begins when, in company with Pylades, he is about 
 to attempt this enterprise. 
 
 In the prologue Iphigeneia appears to relate a mysterious 
 
65 
 
 dream which had convinced her that her only brother Orestes 
 was now dead, and she prepares to offer libations to his shade, and 
 along with her attendant maidens to sing a dirge to his memory. 
 Our attention is thus directed to the mysterious fate of Orestes. 
 Iphigeneia then withdraws, and Orestes and Pylades enter to 
 reconnoitre the temple, and to see how they may get access to 
 the statue. There are signs only too evident of the dreadful 
 customs of the place, and Orestes is ready to fly without attempt- 
 ing his purpose, until he is encouraged by the bolder spirit of his 
 companion. Then they resolve to conceal themselves till night- 
 fall, when they will make the attempt. They retire, and 
 Iphigeneia appears attended by a chorus of maidens, to sing a long 
 lament on the ruin and desolation of the house of Agamemnon. 
 
 In the next scene a herdsman comes in with the news that 
 two young Greeks have been captured ; one of them is 
 named Pylades, the name of the other is unknown. It may be 
 noted in passing that Iphigeneia is addressed by the herdsman 
 as " daughter of Agamemnon and of Clytaemnestra " ; whence we 
 see that her parentage was known to all. She bids the captives 
 be brought to her that she may do her duty in preparing them 
 for sacrifice, a rite which has long been intermitted, owing 
 to the lack of victims. It is a touch of the irony in which this 
 play abounds that Iphigeneia adds : 
 
 hapless heart of mine, in former days 
 Thou wast to strangers pitiful, and ever 
 In ruth abounding, dealing out a tear 
 To all that was of kindred Grecian race, 
 Whenever destiny had brought them here. 
 But now that I have seen the evil dreams 
 Whereby I know Orestes lives no more, 
 All that arrive shall find me pitiless. 
 
 She could wish indeed that it had been Helen or Menelaus, the 
 cause of all her troubles, that she might take revenge upon them. 
 At the same time she caftiot help adding a protest (prompted 
 by the humane rationalism of Euripides) against the barbarous 
 notion that the gods can take pleasure in bloody sacrifices. The 
 usual choric song follows. And then the two captives are brought 
 in, and left alone with Iphigeneia. The dialogue which follows 
 is most skilful and indeed exciting in its interest. Iphigeneia 
 
 F 
 
66 GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 
 
 questioDs Orestes as to his home and parents, and it appears as if 
 every moment the mutual recognition of brother and sister could 
 be no longer delayed. But Orestes is resolved to die in silence ; 
 and Iphigeneia drops no word that reveals her identity. She learns 
 by degrees the story of the fall of Troy, of her father's murder, 
 of the vengeance taken on the murderess. She learns too that her 
 brother is still living, but has no conception that he is standing 
 before her, and doomed to death, if not at her hands, at least at 
 her bidding. At last she offers a chance of escape to one of the 
 captives, if he will take a letter for her to Argos, to summon her 
 friends to deliver her. Orestes declares that for his part he is 
 ready to die, but pleads that Pylades may be entrusted with the 
 message. Iphigeneia cries : 
 
 Oh, best of men, from what a noble stock 
 Thoii'rt surely sprung ; and to thy friends most dear ! 
 Heaven grant that he who of my father's house 
 Now lives alone, may be e'en such as thou. 
 
 After she has left the stage, there follows a scene, most justly 
 famous in antiquity, though worked out more fally in some of 
 the later poets, in which Pylades refuses the favour which 
 Or3stes would secure for him, and protests that he will die for 
 his friend; while Orestes is firm in his resolve, and only bids 
 Pylades see that his name is honoured and funeral rites duly 
 paid him in his mother's country. Iphigeneia then returns. 
 Pylades has sworn that he will deliver the letter safely : but 
 that he may not be guilty of perjury, in case it should be lost by 
 shipwreck, he asks to know the substance of it. Iphigeneia 
 reads : 
 
 Go tell Orestes, son of Agamemnon, 
 His sister, slain in Aulis, sends him this. 
 Yet living here, though all account her slain. 
 
 Orestes cries in amazement : 
 
 Where is she now ? Has she come back from death ? 
 
 Iphigeneia, not knowing who he is, continues quietly : 
 
 She is here before you. Let not your words disturb me, 
 Bring me back home to Argos, ere I die, 
 My brother, from this savage land, and free me 
 I'rom hateful task of slaying strangers here. 
 
GOETHE'S " IPHIGENIE." 67 
 
 Orestes restrains himself no longer. By one proof upon 
 another, the force of which cannot be disputed, he proves to 
 his sister who he is. The recognition is very pathetic. Orestes 
 then explains to his sister what had brought him there, and how 
 he cannot be freed from the maddening pursuit of the Furies 
 unless he fulfils the command of Apollo to bring away the image 
 of Artemis. We may notice by the way that there is no direct 
 appearance in the play of Euripides of this maddened frenzy, or 
 of the dejection which followed the fits of raving. Still less is 
 there any vision of the Furies in person, which Schiller 
 suggested to Groethe, as an impressive stage-effect. We are 
 told, but we are not made to feel, that something further is 
 necessary before Orestes can be purged of the results of his 
 matricide. 
 
 Iphigeneia is eager to help her brother and to evScape herself 
 to Grreece, but how this is to be done without disloyalty to the 
 goddess and to the king she cannot devise. Orestes suggests an 
 attack by force upon the king, but Iphigeneia protests, in a 
 manner which may perhaps have given a hint to Groethe for his 
 nobler conception of her character, against the slaughter of the 
 king by invaders. To carry the image off by stealth seems 
 equally impossible, seeing how it is guarded by day and night. 
 At last Iphigeneia hits upon a device which might well com- 
 mend itself to the Grreek love for cunning. She will plead that 
 the image has been polluted by the touch of the unhallowed 
 strangers, and that she must carry it down to the sea, attended 
 only by her maidens, thaf^ it may be purified in the waters* 
 Thence it can be carried off in the ship which has brought 
 Orestes there, and which is still lying moored in a creek. The 
 permission of the king can be secured on such a pretext ; and the 
 chorus promise their secrecy. — Orestes and Pylades withdraw, 
 and the king Thoas makes his appearance, just when Iphigeneia 
 is coming out of the temple bearing in her arms the sacred 
 image. She tells him that it had turned its back in horror at 
 the sight of the captives, whom she had found by questioning to 
 be tainted with kindred blood, and that now she was taking it 
 to be purified. The dialogue which follows is very crafty, but 
 shows on the part of Iphigeneia almost more than the usual 
 Greek recklessness as to truth, while with grave irony she bids 
 
68 GOETHE'S " IPHIGENIE." 
 
 him bind the captives again, '*for Greece knows nothing of faith, '^ 
 and tells him how well she cares for those who are dear to her. 
 Another long choric ode follows her departure, loosely con- 
 nected, after the manner of Euripides, with the action of 
 the play, but intended perhaps to show the truthfulness 
 of Apollo's oracles, and the utter delusiveness of dreams. 
 Then a messenger enters with exciting news. He had gone 
 with Iphigeneia to the shore, and watched from a distance 
 her mysterious rites of purification, when suddenly, close to 
 the shore, a Grreek ship had made its appearance and after a 
 sharp conflict with the attendants had taken on board the two 
 captives, along with the priestess and the sacred image. One 
 of these captives when safe on the ship had boldly declared that 
 he was Orestes, and that he had come there on purpose to carry 
 his sister back with him to Greece. But as Thoas listens 
 indignantly to the story of the trick that has been played upon 
 him, the messenger goes on to tell of another startling change in 
 the position of affairs. So long as the ship was in the land- 
 locked harbour, whether it was that of Sebastopol, or more 
 probably perhaps that of Balaklava, it had bidden fair to escape ; 
 but when it came to the mouth a gale had burst upon it, and 
 driven it on the rocks, so that now the fugitives were again 
 hopelessly in the power of Thoas. The barbarian king bids all 
 his men hurry to the spot to secure them, and threatens a 
 terrible vengeance, planning to kill them by hurling them from 
 the cliffs, or by the more cruel method of impalement. The 
 plot is now in an entanglement which calls, at least according 
 to the practice of Euripides, for divine intervention to unravel 
 it, and Athena herself appears dea ex machina to inform Thoas 
 that all had been done in obedience to her brother's oracle ; and 
 that Poseidon is already smoothing the way for a return of 
 the wanderers to Greece. By a convenient but hardly plausible 
 fiction, the absent Orestes is supposed to be capable of hearing 
 the divine instructions as to his duty in the future, Thoas shows 
 a remarkable and most unbarbarous readiness to fall in with the 
 commands of the deity, and to calm the wrath which had just 
 been boiling ; and all ends in peace and happiness. 
 
 Such is the material which Goethe had before him : we may 
 now consider how he remoulded it. But before we quite leave 
 
GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 69 
 
 Euripides, it is worth while noticing how the interest of the 
 drama turns almost entirely on the skilful development of the 
 plot. "If the great objects of Attic tragedy were to keep the 
 minds of the audience alternating between the extremes of hope 
 and fear, by the sudden and unexpected shifting of circum- 
 stances, and also to excite compassion by the contemplation of 
 heroic persons placed in positions of imminent peril, and yet 
 rising superior to them ; and if a skilful use of those essential 
 ingredients of an Attic play — irony, dissimulation, and ambigu- 
 ous dialogues — be a merit in an Attic poet, then the Ijpfiigeneia 
 of Euripides contains everything that a good Grreek play can be 
 expected to contain," So says Mr, Paley : and in substance I 
 agree with him, though I should have preferred to word it 
 otherwise. But on the other hand, I cannot with him find in it 
 much skilful development of character. In all the leading per- 
 sonages there are serious flaws which go far to hinder our per- 
 fect sympathy with them in their critical positions ; and if this is 
 but an instance of the traditional tendency of Euripides to paint 
 men as they are, not as they ought to be, it remains none the less 
 true that the revengefulness and deceit of the heroine, and the 
 combination of discretion with valour in Orestes, if very Greek, 
 are still not very heroic. Nor does it appear to me that there is 
 much development of character in a play the principal attraction 
 of which lies in the rapid vicissitudes of the action. Still it 
 remains, as Hermann justly called it, one of the very finest works 
 of Euripides. 
 
 And now what did Groethe do with it ? That learned scholar. 
 Dr. Donaldson, who did not always escape the penalties of a 
 precipitate grasping at omniscience, speaks of his singularly 
 beautiful reproduction of Euripides. A more unhappy phrase 
 could hardly have been chosen. Two features were always 
 prominent in the Grreek tragedy, as representing the two origin- 
 ally distinct elements, whose union formed the drama : there 
 were the choric odes, derived from the Dorian worship of Apollo, 
 and the narratives of messengers, lineally descended from the Ionian 
 stories of the sufferings and the victories of Dionysus. Both of 
 these Groethe has eliminated. The famous chant of Iphigenie — 
 
 Es fiirchte die Gotter 
 Das Menschengeschlecht ! — 
 
70 goethk's "iphigenie." 
 
 and one or two other semi-lyrical monologues in no way take 
 the place of the elaborate odes sung by the chorus of Grreek 
 maidens ; and although there are several splendid passages of 
 narrative, these deal with the past, and not with the action which, 
 but for the conventions of the Greek drama, would take place 
 before the eyes of the spectators. In that there is nothing dis- 
 tinctively or characteristically Grreek in the form of the Iphigenie. 
 If we turn from the form to the spirit, we find an even more 
 striking difference. In Euripides, the incidents of the plot may 
 be said to have no connexion whatever with the characters 
 of the dramatis jpersoiiai ; they are, so to say, purely acci- 
 dental. Even the central turning-point, the recognition of 
 Orestes of the letter, is in no way occasioned by the 
 action of Pylades. He makes his protest that he is will- 
 ing to die with his friend, but he withdraws it with 
 little opposition, and it is only because he has withdrawn it, 
 that the name of Orestes is mentioned. With Groethe the climax 
 of the interest is reached only in the struggle of contending 
 forces in the hearts first of Iphigenie and then of Thoas. If this 
 struggle is one which we might venture to call inconceivable by 
 a Greek, and which certainly was not conceived by Euripides, 
 this is only one more point of essential and fundamental differ- 
 ence. Then if we take the characters separately, we find the 
 broadest lines of distinction. The Iphigenie, as is well known, 
 was first written in prose, and indeed was privately acted in this 
 form as early as 1779; but it was revised and recast at least 
 three, if not four, times after this. It was only after the third 
 revision — the second in which the drama was thrown into verse — 
 that Goethe visited Bologna, and saw there Kaffaelle's St. Agatha ; 
 but we need not doubt that the language in which he expressed 
 the effect which this picture had upon him faithfully represents 
 the ideal which he had kept before him in his earlier drafts of 
 the play, although he had not as yet attached it to any concrete 
 form : " Ich habe mir die Gestalt wohl gemerkt, und werde ihr 
 im Geist meine Iphigenie vorlesen und meine Heldin nichts sagen 
 lassen, was diese Heilige nicht aussprechen mochte." Iphigenie 
 is the noblest ideal of womanhood. 
 
 At her first appearance, in words of marvellous beauty 
 she expresses at once her yearning for home and kindred, 
 
71 
 
 and her sense of the worthlessness of religious service 
 which is not the outcome of free and glad devotion. In 
 the next scene we learn from Arkas the spell which her 
 sweet womanliness has cast upon the wild Scythians in 
 weaning them from their savage practice of human sacrifices, 
 and how she has spread gladness through the land by her 
 influence over the king. In the next the king himself confesses 
 his love, and asks for her hand in marriage. Iphigenie, after 
 in vain attempting to postpone an answer, confesses the fatal 
 secret that she is of the accursed race of Tantalus. The king 
 persists in his offer ; and when the heroine pleads to be allowed 
 to return to Grreece, he seems to grant her request, if a chance 
 should offer, but with bitter words against the folly of trusting 
 to a woman, and declares that the old custom should be no 
 more suspended, and that every stranger who touches the shore 
 of Tauris should again be offered as a victim. Two have just 
 been captured. He will send them to the temple, and Iphigenie 
 knows her duty. In the second act Orestes and Pylades appear, 
 and after a long dialogue between them, Iphigenie enters and, 
 after Orestes has withdrawn, learns from Pylades, as in Euripides, 
 the fate of Troy and of her father. The next act brings Iphigenie 
 face to face with Orestes : after telling the story of his mother's 
 murder, he acknowledges that he is Orestes, and she in turn 
 declares herself as his sister. At first he is incredulous, and 
 when he is convinced his heart is too full of the misery of his 
 race to gain much joy from the recognition. In no part of the 
 drama is the language more exquisitely beautiful ; but there 
 is no touch of dramatic skill in the conduct of the plot ; and 
 the poet seems to force upon us the lesson that we are not to 
 look for the interest of his pliy in any merely external change of 
 position. All the more do we feel the impressiveness of the 
 moral motive, which forces the confession from Orestes : 
 
 I cannot bear that one so good as thou 
 Should be deceived by any lying word. 
 A stranger may contrive some web of bis 
 For strangers to entrap the unwary foot, 
 Between us reign the truth : I am Orestes. 
 
 It is the same shrinking from falsehood, which in the fourth 
 act makes Iphigenie struggle against the necessity of deceiving 
 
72 GOETHE'S " IPHl GENIE." 
 
 the king in order to aid in the escape of the captives. As in the 
 earlier play she pleads that she must purify the image of the 
 goddess, polluted by the presence of a murderer. Pylades urges 
 upon her the command of the oracle, as justifying the theft of 
 the image. But at last she resolves to appeal to the mercy of 
 the king, who has already had reason to suspect some treachery. 
 The struggle is over in her own heart; she has gained the victory, 
 and is in the middle of her supplication to Thoas, when Orestes 
 and Pylades break in, resolved to carry her away by force. A 
 spirited scene follows, in which Orestes, who has regained his 
 youthful heroism, now that his sister's love has freed him from 
 the curse of the Furies, challenges Thoas to single combat. The 
 king accepts, and is ready to fight rather than give up the image 
 of his goddess; but Orestes confesses that they have discovered 
 their error ; Apollo in bidding them bring away the sister who 
 dwelt in Tauris, meant not his own sister's image, but Iphigenie, 
 the sister of Orestes. Thoas bids them go ; and in answer to a 
 final appeal from Iphigenie, who cannot endure to part in ill-will 
 from one who had shown her such kindness, gives them the last 
 «Leb-wohl." 
 
 In sending a copy of the play to the actor Kriiger, Groethe in 
 1827 prefixed some lines of dedication, which give the clue to 
 his own conception of its chief lesson. 
 
 Alle menschliche Gebrechen 
 Siihnet reine Menschlichkeit. 
 
 It is a drama of atonement,hut atonement in a Christian. 
 
 In his conception of the character of Orestes, Groethe departs 
 not less widely from that found in Euripides. With the latter the 
 distress of Orestes is due to external causes : it is the pursuit of 
 the Furies which maddens him. With Groethe it is rather the 
 abiding consciousness of his sin, from which no merely external 
 aid can free him. Schiller felt the full significance of the 
 transformation : " Without Furies we can have no Orestes," and 
 he wishes that Goethe could devise some means to meet the lack, 
 though this seems hardly possible with the structure of the 
 piece, as it stood, for all that can be done without gods and 
 spirits has been done already. But it is evident that the whole 
 significance of the play for a modern audience would have been 
 
GOETHE'S " IPHIGENIE.'* 73 
 
 rained if forces had been brought into action which to them 
 were incredible. It must be the permanently human and not the 
 transiently Greek, which is to work upon our sympathies. 
 
 The character of Pylades too is re-cast, and lifted to a higher 
 plane. In Euripides he is entirely in the background. In 
 •Groethe he appears as the inspiring force, " the dear and noble 
 man " for whom Iphigenie is thankful to heaven, not in a 
 Hellenic sense. A sister's love and loyalty blot out the dark 
 stains of the past, and restore a brother to peace and joy. It is 
 impossible to analyse the manner in which this result is pro- 
 duced: " Versdhnen ist immerlar der schone Beruf der 
 Frauen.'^ 
 
 The question now arises, how far was Goethe justified 
 in departing so far from historic colouring, as to permeate his 
 poem with conceptions foreign to the Greek ideas. Mr. 
 Mahaffy in his somewhat hasty criticism pronounces that it is 
 ■" generally allowed, even in Germany, to be a somewhat unfor- 
 tunate mixture of Greek scenery and characters with modern 
 romantic sentiment." With this judgment I cannot agree. 
 The question is indeed one which presents itself in the criticism 
 of many dramatic works besides the Iphigenie. Is it legitimate 
 in dealing with sentiments which are common to human 
 nature, and not restricted to any particular age or country, to 
 -choose for their embodiments characters in which they cannot 
 have historically existed, without an admixture of alien 
 elements ? This underlies the whole issue in dispute between 
 the idealists and the realists. The charge of anachronism is one 
 that is easily brought, but it is a somewhat shallow criticism 
 which holds that, when it is once admitted, it settles our judg- 
 ment on the Troilus and Gressida, or Julius Cwsar, or Goethe's 
 Egmont or Browning's Saul, Granted that Goethe has trans- 
 ferred human nature, as he knew it, tinged and moulded by the 
 centuries of Christian thought, to the shores of Scythia : may we 
 not ask " Why not ? " The attempt to reproduce the actual 
 ■conceptions of a barbarous age would have certainly failed : we 
 have not the materials needed for the picture. But Mr. Lewes 
 has acutely noticed that Goethe has only done what Euripides 
 •did before him. In both cases, they chose a period remote from 
 their own, in order to set forth the ideas of their time under 
 
74 GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 
 
 conditions free from the confusing complications of contempo- 
 rary scenes and character. We have only to ask whether the 
 gain has outweighed the loss. And I fail to see that Groethe 
 would have gained if on the one hand he had attempted a toiur 
 deforce^ and had excluded from his treatment of an ancient 
 Greek legend every sentiment foreign to the Athenians of the 
 time of Pericles, or if, on the other hand, he had set forth the 
 moral struggles between the claims of love and gratitude in a 
 story taken from modern life. 
 
 Mme. de Stael declared that " this tragedy recalls the kind of 
 impression one receives in contemplating the Grreek statues." 
 Was she as wrong as has often been assumed ? 
 
 Let us grant that there is nothing distinctively Grreek in the 
 characters of the Iphigenie : is there much in the friezes of the 
 Parthenon ? One element which has given its permanent power 
 to the higher Greek art — I am not speaking of the terra-cottas 
 of Tanagra, charming as they are in their way — is that it puts 
 aside the temporal and the accidental, and gives us that which is 
 best and most beautiful in the humanity common to us alL 
 Hence we prize it, not for its historical accuracy, but because it 
 reveals to us possibilities of nobleness and grace which are ideals 
 for all times and countries. And so it is with the lofty thoughts, 
 the tender pathos, the loyal and unswerving truth of Goethe's 
 Iphigenie. If they are not Greek, they are human. But again, 
 a second element in Greek art, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has so 
 often taught us, is the manner in which the parts are subor- 
 dinated to the whole, so that the mind rests satisfied in the 
 contemplation of the artistic unity. And here, too, Mr. Lewes 
 justly says of the Iphigenie that we have "the perfect unity of 
 impression produced by the whole, so that nothing in it seems 
 made, but all to grow; nothing is superfluous, but all is in 
 organic dependence ; nothing is there for detached effect, but the 
 whole is effect. The poem fills the mind : beautiful as the 
 separate passages are, admirers seldom think of passages, they 
 think of the wondrous whole." Mr. Hayward, in a sketch of 
 Goethe which seems to me mainly to show how little compe- 
 tent knowledge and praiseworthy fidelity of reproduction neces- 
 sarily do to create true sympathy with a great mind, declares 
 that there is " little Greek about it beyond the names and the 
 
GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 75" 
 
 groundwork of the plot." I venture to think tliat this judgment 
 attaches far too little weight to the truly Hellenic severity and 
 chastity of form, which is surely reconcileable with wide differ- 
 ences in ethical tone and moral aspiration. And even from the 
 latter point of view, Mr. Hay ward seems to go much too far in 
 calling it the natural against the supernatural, the Christian 
 against the Pagan, the German against the Greek. For the very 
 notion of the curse which rested upon the house of Tantalus, 
 a notion which lies so heavy at the heart of both Orestes and 
 Iphigenie, is one borrowed wholly from the ancient world. 
 
 Gottfried Hermann in the interesting preface to his edition of 
 the Iphigenia Taurica, while on the whole doing full justice ta 
 the poem of Goethe, to whom indeed he dedicates his edition, 
 withholds his approval from the closing passage. " The closing 
 word ' farewell ' wounds deeply the heart of the listener, and 
 is not in accord with the practice of Greek tragedy, nor the laws 
 of poetic art. For the close of a poem, and especially in tragedy,, 
 ought to be such, that the mind rests in a calm emotion, and 
 that what the poet ought to express in full should not be 
 abruptly checked. If he does not express it, he simply leaves 
 his tragedy unfinished and without a close. A Greek poet would 
 not have given us this ' farewell ' wrung out by force, but he 
 would have made Thoas utter several lines, as a high-souled man 
 ought to have done, to say that although he is unwilling to let 
 Iphigenie go, still, yielding to the fates and to the will of the 
 gods, he bids her return home with the brother whom she had 
 found, with all good wishes for her happiness." 
 
 We could hardly have a better example of the danger 
 of transferring a canon from one style of art, and making 
 it law universal. It is true, as Professor Jebb has very 
 well said, that it is a characteristic of Greek literary 
 art that wherever pity, terror, anger, or any passion- 
 ate feeling is uttered or invited, this tumult is resolved 
 in a final calm; and where such tumult has place in the 
 peroration, it subsides before the last sentences of all. As a 
 rule the very end is calm, not so much because the speaker 
 feels this to be necessary, if he is to leave an impression of per 
 sonal dignity, but rather because the sense of an ideal beauty in 
 humanity and in human speech governs his effort as a whole, and 
 
76 GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 
 
 makes him desire that when this effort is most distinctly viewed 
 as a whole — namely, at the close — it should have the serenity of 
 a completed harmony. But even in Greek art this rule is liable 
 to exceptions, as Professor Jebb himself points out in the case of 
 the magnificently daring and passionate close of Demosthenes' 
 oration on the Crown ; and it breaks down wholly when trans- 
 ferred to other styles of art. Which of us does not feel that the 
 restrained pathos of the " Leb-wohl " of the king, who is parting 
 from the very light of his life, would be infinitely marred, if it 
 were expanded into the dozen or so of highly appropriate lines, 
 which Euripides would probably have put into his mouth ? 
 
 One word more on a question which has been much discussed, 
 as to the classification of Groethe's Iphigenie. We are told that 
 it is not a drama ; it is only a dramatic poem. The question is 
 not of much greater interest than that other which has troubled 
 righteous souls, whether Hermann und Dorothea is an idyllic 
 epic, or only an epic idyl. It is admitted that it is not a 
 drama of action : The Furies do not storm across the stage, as 
 Mr. Lewes by an odd oversight (left even in later editions) sup- 
 poses that they do in the play of Euripides ; there is no excite- 
 ment of external incidents, no startling n-piiteT=iu of circum- 
 stance. But is Schiller right in adding '' the sensuous power, 
 the life, the agitation, and everything which specifically 
 belongs to a dramatic work is wanting ? " It is certain that it 
 "purifies by pity and terror," that it calls for great dramatic 
 power on the part of the actors, that its effect upon the audience 
 whenever it is worthily put upon the stage is intense and deep. 
 If this be so, it is hard to see what we gain by refusing it the 
 name of a drama. 
 
 I fear that my suggestions for the criticism of these two great 
 works of art have been very slight and crude. In laying them 
 before the Society, I can only plead in the words of G-oethe 
 himself : " Eine Arbeit wird eigentlich nie fertig : man muss 
 sie fiir fertig erklaren, wenn man nach Zeit und Umstanden das 
 Moglichste gethan hat.' 
 
5. —GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 By Mr. H. PEEISINGER. 
 
 Taper read 2bth January, 1893. 
 
 In speaking of Servian poetry one thinks in the first place of 
 Servian folk-song, for this is the one first-rate contribution of the 
 Servian race to the literature of the world. This poetry has in 
 various translations been before the eye of Europe for about 70 
 years. Groethe was concerned in spreading the knowledge of it 
 ?tt two widely distant points of his career: about the year 1775, 
 when he and Herder translated what were practically the first 
 Servian songs made known to Europe, and fifty years later, in 
 1824, when his interest in Servian poetry was roused by { 
 Grimm and Karadchich, and when he stimulated and helped on the 
 best known of its translators Miss Therese von Jakob, and 
 stamped these productions with the prestige of his own name. 
 
 On the first of these occasions his name appears in close con- 
 junction with the friend whose influence plays such an important 
 part in his own development, with Herder. It is well known 
 how Herder imbued Goethe at Strasburg with his enthusiasm 
 for folk-song, just as he imbued him with his love for Homer, 
 for Ossian, for Shakespeare. Herder's conception of folk-song as a 
 poetry common to the primitive stages of ail peoples, ancient and 
 modern, was intimately connected with his theories on the origin 
 of language. For him poetry was the oldest expression of the 
 human mind in language, older than prose, and in this primitive 
 poetry he traces the characteristics of the primitive times in 
 which both language and poetry had their birth. Power, sen- 
 suousness, feeling, sound, he finds everywhere in this primitive 
 poetry, just as in his theory of language he assumes that the 
 word roots expressive of sound and feeling everywhere precede 
 those significative of impressions of the eye. " The essence of 
 folk-song," he says, " is song, not imagery, its perfection is in the 
 melodious progress of passion, its characteristic is Weise " (a word 
 
78 GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 which we might render with " lilt," musical tone). " A song 
 must be heard.'' 
 
 To bring out this musical tone, this lilt of the songs, by fol- 
 lowing the rhythm, and if possible the cast of sentence and 
 order of words of the original, was the chief aim of the transla- 
 tions from foreign folk-song which Herder published in the years 
 of 1778 and 1779, along with Grerman songs collected from 
 written and oral sources. Goethe was a contributor to this collec- 
 tion,the title of which was simply "Folk Songs" ( Volkslieder), and 
 not *' Voices of the Peoples," as later editors more ambitiously 
 called them, whilst the arrangement was likewise different, being 
 -according to the subjects and not to the nationality of the 
 poems, (^) 
 
 In this collection the family of the Slav languages (if we con- 
 sider it apart from the closely related Lithuanian) was repre- 
 sented by four ballads from the Morlachian, two in the first and 
 two in the second volume, and these belong more particularly 
 to our subject, for they are really Servian ballads.(^) 
 
 Morlachs is (to this day) the name of the Dalmatians living 
 to the north of Ragusa, so far as the Vellibich mountains, and 
 on the islands between Dalmatia and Istria. Their language is 
 essentially the same as that of the Servians living farther 
 inland in Herzegovina, Bosnia, Servia proper, or in Croatia and 
 the Hungarian Banat. At the time spoken of the Morlachs 
 were the subjects of the Venetian Republic, which owned the 
 Dalmatian littoral, and a few years before the publication of 
 Herder's Volkslieder they had been brought to the notice of 
 Europe by the learned Venetian traveller, Abbate Alberto 
 Fortis. His travels on the islands of the Gruarnaro and on the 
 Dalmatian and Croatian littoral were made in the interest of 
 archaeology and natural science, especially geology, and under 
 the patronage, partly in the company of leading Englishmen, such 
 
 (1) Volkslieder, Erster Teil. Leipzig, Weygand, 1778. 
 
 Volkslieder, Zweiter Teil. Leipzig, JVeggand, 1779. Reprinted in Suphan's 
 edition, and also separately, Berlin, Weidmann, 1885. 
 
 (2) The titles of the Ballads are : 
 
 I. Mn Gesang von Milos Cobilichund Vuko Brancowich (p 61). 
 
 II. Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga (p. 149). 
 
 III. Radoslaus (p. 277 j, and 
 
 IV. Die Schone Lolmetscherin (p. 281). 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 79 
 
 as John Stuart,Earl of Bute, and Hervey,Bishop of Londonderry. 
 Fortis, however, did not confine his observations to natural 
 phenomena and classical remains. He takes a considerable 
 interest in the inhabitants of those countries, in the manners and 
 superstitions of those Morlacchi who were by their Venetian 
 rulers looked upon as utter barbarians, in bad odour from their 
 excesses as soldiers in the wars of the Kepublic. In each of 
 his two works of Dalmatian travel (^) Fortis gives a specimen of 
 Morlachian poetry with an Italian translation, and in the second 
 work he has a chapter " on the Manners and Customs of the 
 Morlacchi," which seems to have excited a general interest, for it 
 was soon translated into Grerman, English and French. The 
 poem added to the second work, the Travels in Dalmatia, and 
 called "^ plaintive ditty of the noble luife ofAssanAga" is the 
 one translated by Goethe under the title " Klaggesang von der 
 edlen Frauen des Asan Aga.^^ 
 
 The translation of the other ballad, which belongs to the 
 epic cycle of the battle of Kossowo, the death stroke to Servia as 
 an empire, as well as of two more published in the second part of 
 the Volkslieder and obtained in 1778 from Fortis by the Prince 
 of Gotha, seems to have been made by Herder from Fortis's Italian 
 translations. These three ballads have been traced to their 
 original source in a volume of Servian folk-poetry, the first ever 
 printed, published at Venice in 1759 by the Bosnian Franciscan 
 monk Andria Cachich Miossich.(*) 
 
 As, however, Miossich's versions are rather imitations than 
 genuine folk-songs, or at any rate largely altered and embel- 
 lished by Miossich according to his own ideas of taste, a greater 
 interest attaches to the one translated by Goethe, which seems 
 really to have been taken from the mouth of the people, or 
 rather of one of the minstrels of Servian epic poetry. It is 
 extant in three versions, which have been published by the Slav 
 
 (8) Osservazioni sulV isola di Cherso ed Osei^o, Venezia, 1771. 
 
 Viaggio in Dalmazia, Venezia, 1774, An English translation of both works ap- 
 peared in 1778 under the title of Travels into Dalmatia . . . in a series of letters 
 from Abbe Albei^to Fortis . . . to which are added . . . Observations on the Island of 
 Cherso and Osero. London, Robson, 1778. 
 
 (4) Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskoga. 
 
80 GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 scholar, Dr. Miklosich, in 1883. C^) Herder probably became 
 acquainted with Fortis's works in the same way in which he 
 collected books of travel and grammars of primitive languages of 
 all kinds for the purpose of his studies of primitive language 
 and poetry. The second work, which only appeared in 1775, he 
 may perhaps have heard of through Groethe, who could have 
 seen the translation published at Berne in 1775 (^) on his Swiss 
 journey in that year. 
 
 Servian written literature had with one notable exception 
 ceased with the downfall of the empire built up by Stephan 
 Dushan, in the battle of Kossowo, 1389, under the onslaught of 
 the Turks. The exception was the remarkable efflorescence of 
 literature during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, in the 
 small republican cities of the Adriatic Littoral, chiefly in Kagusa, 
 where under the influence of the Greek fugitives from Con- 
 stantinople and of the renaissance poetry of neighbouring Italy, 
 Servian poetry was written and even Servian plays were acted 
 in the time of Shakespeare. 
 
 In the inland parts inhabited by people speaking Servian, which,. 
 apart from the Dalmatian Littoral and the Croatian provinces 
 belonging to Hungary, were under the sway of the Turks, the 
 only living literature down to our own times was folk-song, never 
 written down, but either sung, as the lyrical poems proper by 
 maidens and youths, in spinning rooms or at dances, at work and 
 play, or chanted, as the epic and heroic songs, to the accompani- 
 ment of the guzle, a one-stringed violin, by old minstrels, many 
 of them blind, in market-place or tavern, at festivals and general 
 gatherings of the people. 
 
 In the lyrical songs, '' female songs " as they are called by the 
 Servians, the joys and sorrows of the young, love, weddings 
 domestic life are the chief themes. 
 
 History, legend, adventure are the subjects of the epic songs. 
 A whole cluster of them deals with the fatal battle of Kossowo, 
 and in another cycle the half mythical Prince Marco, the ideal 
 Servian hero, bold, brave, and strong, but equally cruel and over- 
 bearing, is the chief personage. 
 
 (5) Uber G.^s Klaggesancj v.d.e. F.A.A. Vienna, Govld, 1884, 
 (6) Die Sitten cler Morlacken . . . Ba^n, iypoyr, Gesellsch,, 1775. 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 81 
 
 In the more modern ballads the intercourse with the Turks in 
 war and peace finds its reflection. In the course of time many 
 leading Servians had become Mohammedans to save their estates 
 from confiscation, as indeed at this present time many of the 
 Bosnian landowners, though of Servian race and language, are 
 followers of Islam. Even among the Mohammedan Servians 
 the passion for the old songs subsists, and many interesting 
 songs in the chief collections are taken from Mohammedan 
 minstrels. 
 
 In the song translated by Goethe, all the personages seem to 
 be Turks. Aga, or Lord Hassan, divorces his wife because she 
 was too bashful to visit him as he lay wounded in his tent. She 
 has to leave her home and children, and her proud brother weds 
 her to another. But as she rides past her old home in the bridal 
 procession, she cannot forbear to visit her children,and when the 
 father calls them away her heart breaks and she falls down dead. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how Groethe in his translation 
 follows Herder's theory and method, how he aims at reproduc- 
 ing, in a manner, the general effect of the original. 
 
 The metrical form of the ballad is that common to Servian 
 epic poetry : the ten syllable line, with a trochaic or falling 
 rhythm, with a break after the 4th syllable and a more decided 
 one at the end of the verse, a form suggestive of the mode in 
 wliich the poems are chanted by the minstrels, who at the 
 end of every other verse pause and strike some chords on their 
 instrument. Groethe, in speaking of his translation 50 years 
 afterwards, truly says that although ignorant of Servian he had 
 tried to keep to the rhythm and to guess at the order of words 
 of the original. Groethe's was not the first translation of the 
 song into Grerman ; in 1775 there appeared at Berne a trans- 
 lation of Fortis's chapter on the Manners and Customs of the 
 Morlacchi which contained a translation of the poem in Grerman 
 iambics. Groethe has followed both this and Fortis's Italian 
 translation, which is in endecasillabi of the usual iambic 
 rhythm of Italian poetry, but neither of these translations follows 
 the original line by line, such as Groethe's does, and he 
 certainly reproduces more closely the characteristic qualities of 
 the original. For instance, he maintains throughout the 
 pause at the end of the verse, that is to say the sense never 
 
 G 
 
82 GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 overlaps the verse, and although he does not follow the rule of 
 the break after the fourth syllable, the great majority of his 
 verses have a break after the third and fourth line, which tends 
 to reproduce something of the Servian rhythm. He further 
 reproduces, in a way which the other translations from 
 their structure were precluded from doing, the frequent 
 parallelism of the verses and the repetition of words and clauses. 
 It is worth while to notice that Herder's three translations, 
 although they too are in five feet trochees, do not present the 
 qualities I have just named. I do not wish to overstate my case 
 by claiming these characteristics as exclusively belonging to 
 Servian poetry. Many Spanish romances have, for instance, the 
 pause after each verse and a frequent parallelism of syntax and 
 verse, and in Herder's translations both from Spanish and from 
 Lithuanian the same qualities appear. 
 
 On the other hand Goethe's translation has some metrical 
 qualities such as the decided avoidance of words with an iambic 
 rhythm, which are not in the Servian, where the ver.«e accent 
 often goes against the word accent. The fact which I wish to 
 emphasize is, however, that the characteristics of this translation, 
 the first poem Goethe ever wrote in five feet trochaic lines, both 
 those that are and those that are not to be found in the original, 
 are to be found again and again, whenever he uses the same 
 metre. The first of the poems he wrote in this metre after the 
 Klaggesang, is the Seefahrt, written in September, 1776, of 
 which I will only quote a few lines to show my point. 
 
 Und die Segel bliiben in dem Haiiche 
 Und die Sonne lockt mit Feuerliebe 
 Ziehn die Segel, ziebn die hohen Wolken. 
 
 Others between that time and the first years after the Italian 
 journey are der Becker, Nachtgedanken, der Besuch, Morgen- 
 klagen, Amor als Landschaftamaler, and even a casual examina- 
 tion of these will show that the metrical characteristics 
 mentioned occur in them. They may be even traced in the 
 beautiful lines put into the mouth of Bpimeleia in the Pandora, 
 written as late as 1807. 
 
 Thus we may say that the form and rhythm of Servian 
 folk-song has entered intimately into the tissue of Goethe's 
 poetry. 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 83 
 
 Of the Servians themselves Groethe at that time knew next to 
 nothing. 
 
 The Morlacchi excited a certain interest as a primitive race 
 which might exemplify the theories of Rousseau, but few or 
 none knew them to be of Servian race, and of that larger Servia 
 inside the Dalmatian strip of coast owned by Venice, and south 
 of the Croatian provinces mismanaged, as Fortis thought, by 
 the Austrian fiscal system, scarcely anything was known. The 
 Servian people became only known thirty years later, in 1804, 
 when they rose under their leader, the Black Greorge, against the 
 Turks, whom they drove out in a war of many vicissitudes, and 
 although in 1813 the Turks regained possession, a few years later 
 another rise was headed by Milosh Obrenovich and from that 
 time Servia had practically become independent. 
 
 At the time of these wars, Servian folk-song was still flourish- 
 ing in full vigour. In a country whose very prince was long 
 ignorant of the art of letters, poetry supplied the place of 
 history and newspaper, and the minstrels now sang, «ot only the 
 deeds of Czar Lazar and Marco Kraljewich, the heroes of old, but 
 the new and newest events of the time. Thus the blind Philip, 
 the author of many of the songs of that war of liberation, sang 
 before Stojan Tschupich the battle of Salash, where that warrior 
 bad been the leader, and Stojan in his delight gave the blind 
 singer a white horse in guerdon of his song. Nor did the 
 warriors themselves disdain to seize the guzle and sing their 
 own deeds, as the hero minstrels of old Teutonic legend. 
 
 In those times were made the first successful efforts to 
 recreate a Servian literary language. Apart from the Dalmatian 
 literature spoken of, everything which had been written by 
 Servians had been in Church Slavonian, or dialects largely mixed 
 with it. Now men arose who said that the language written 
 should be the language spoken, only purified of foreign and 
 chiefly Turkish elements and assimilated to the language of 
 popular poetry, which was shown to be essentially the same as 
 the dialect of Ragusan literature. 
 
 The most interesting figure in this regenerative work is Vuk 
 Stephanovich Karadchich, a true son of the people, born in Turkish 
 Servia, with a scanty scholarly training acquired in the 
 Gymnasium of Austrian Karlstadt, but with the instincts of a 
 
84 GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 philologer, with a keen insight in his own language and a stead- 
 fast enthusiasm for its preservation and regeneration. 
 
 The grammar and dictionary which he wrote were the first of 
 the Eastern Servian tongue, whereas various Dalmatian, or 
 as they were called Illyrian grammars and dictionaries 
 had appeared ever since the 16th century, mostly in Venice. 
 Apart from his merits in the regeneration of his langunge 
 Karadchich deserves the thanks of all students of literature for his 
 collection, mostly from the lips of the people, of about 600 folk- 
 songs and epics, which is to this day the standard work in this 
 class of literature. 
 
 In 1814 he published in Vienna a century of these poems, 
 among which, as Jacob Grimm says, there is scarcely a weak 
 one, and which may be said to have been the first introduction of 
 Servian folk-song to Europe at large. C) Karadchich sent some 
 of these poems, with their translations, to Groethe in Weimar, 
 whose interest he sought to enlist by a reproduction in original 
 and translation of the Klaggesang {Ascinaginitza) which Goethe 
 had translated 40 years before. But Goethe was then plunged in 
 the study of a poetry from a farther East than the banks of the 
 Drina and the Morawa. While Europe resounded under the 
 tread of armies Goethe studied Arabic and imitated Hafis, and 
 so Servian folk-song had to bide its time. 
 
 But nine years later Karadchich was more fortunate. The 
 difficulties which the Austrian censorship put into the way of 
 printing his works induced Karadchich to transfer their publication 
 to Leipzig, whither he went in 1823, stopping on his way in 
 Halle, where Jacob Grimm was librarian, and where he found 
 encouragement and help both by Grimm and Professor Vater. 
 Grimm translated and prefaced Karadchich's smaller Servian 
 grammar and introduced him to Goethe. Karadchich does not, 
 however, seem to have visited Weimar, but sent Goethe his 
 books and several literal translations of folk-songs which 
 interested the latter greatly. 
 
 There were indeed in this Servian poetry many things to 
 
 (7) About the time of the publication of Wolff's Prolegomena ad Homeriim Johannes 
 Miiller had obtained some 38 Servian songs with their Latin translations through 
 the Ragusan author Ferich, with a view to exemplifying Wolff's theories, but the 
 knowledge of them cannot have spread beyond a small circle. 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 85 
 
 arouse Groethe's interest. Ever ready as he was to welcome true 
 poetry where he found it, he could not fail to recognise the 
 sterling qualities of much of this folk poetry, and he even com- 
 pared some of the lyrical pieces to the Song of Songs. To his 
 keen interest in national individuality it must have appeared a 
 grateful task to read the life and character of the Servian people, 
 as it lay patent in this b^dy of poetry, whilst the simple and 
 effective way in which typically human situations were treated 
 there must have commended itself as congenial with his own 
 poetical practice. He did not, of course, fail to see what was 
 barbaric or mechanical either in the substance or the form of this 
 poetry, but if he was no indiscriminate he was a genuine 
 admirer of its many beauties. 
 
 At any rate he gave himself up for a time, in his usual thorough- 
 going way, to the study of this poetry, reading and comparing 
 translations of different kinds, free and literal, as he could get 
 them, and even wading through the crude German versions of 
 Karadchich, which had but their faithfulness to recommend 
 them. 
 
 We can see from his correspondence and conversations how 
 much he was taken up with this poetry. In a conversation with 
 Eckermann, for in^.tance, he points out the truly poetical 
 motives which are at the bottom of these songs and inveighs 
 against the dilettanti, who believe that fine verses or even fine 
 feelings can make a poem, whereas the true power of it is in the 
 poetical situation, the motive which forms its groundwork. On 
 another occasion, he says of a Servian poem, that like all true 
 poems it contains the whole of poetry. 
 
 It was at this juncture that he was approached by a young 
 lady who had eagerly entered upon the translation of these 
 songs, and who sent him specimens of her work, of which he 
 highly approved. Her name was Miss Therese von Jacob, later 
 on the wife of the American Bible scholar, Professor Robinson, of 
 Andover, in Mass., but best known under her literary pseudonym 
 of Talvj. Grrillparzer, who met her in Groethe's house, when she 
 must have been 29 years old, calls her as young as beautiful, and as 
 beautiful as well informed and amiable. But still more remark- 
 able is the simplicity and modesty, the good sense and firmness 
 of her character as it appears in her correspondence with Groethe 
 
86 GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 and others. (®) Grimm's review of Karadchich's songs had induced 
 her to utilise a former acquaintance with Russian acquired 
 during her stay with her father at Charkoff and Petersburg in 
 studying Servian with the help of Karadchich's books, and soon 
 afterwards she commenced translating songs from his collection 
 which afterwards expanded into the two vols, of Servian folk-songs 
 which she published in 1824 and 1826. Groethe entered into her 
 ideas with interest, encouraged her to persevere in her work, 
 and sent her MS. poems to translate. He looked upon 
 it as a good thing that a lady should be the first to make the 
 public acquainted with this poetry, as men, he thought, would 
 not be able to enter so completely into a foreign individuality or 
 to reproduce it so faithfully. He also encouraged her in not 
 attempting a greater faithfulness than the genius of the German 
 language would allow, and in disregarding even the authority of 
 Grimm and the Slav scholars who wished her renderings to be 
 closer to the original. Goethe advised her also as to the 
 arrangement of the poems, and altogether his stimulating 
 influence had a great share in making her complete her work so 
 quickly. 
 
 Goethe accepted her dedication of the poems, and called the 
 attention of the literary public to them in an interesting essay 
 on Servian popular poetry, which he considered in its historical 
 and ethnographical setting, trying to summarise the general con- 
 tents of the poems. This essay, as well as several others on 
 other translations of Servian folk-songs, and on an epic poem, 
 Serbianca, a description of the wars of liberation by Simeon 
 Milutiuovich, appeared (1825, 1827, 1828) in Kunst und Alter- 
 thum,{^) an occasional publication in which Goethe spoke of art 
 and other matters which he wished to bring before the public. 
 
 Talvj's translations excited general interest. Men like 
 Grimm, Savigny, Varnhagen read and praised them, Duke Carl 
 August carried them about with him, and soon other transla- 
 tors followed in her wake, turning to those poems of Karadchich's 
 collection which she had omitted. 
 
 It seems however that while Miss von Jacob worked from 
 
 (H) G. Jahrh, XII., 33f. Miklosich, Klagcjesamj 52-79, 
 (9) Goethe's Werlcc, XXIX., pp. 575-596. 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 87 
 
 the original, other translators used literal versions made for 
 them by Servian scholars, and John Bowring, whose transla- 
 tions of Servian popular songs into English appeared in 
 1827, seems for the most part to have translated from the 
 German of Miss von Jacob. 
 
 Even after her marriage and removal to America Talvj, or 
 Mrs. Robinson, did not forget her early occupation with Servian 
 folk-song. Among other things she wrote a historical view of 
 the Slavic languages and literatures, with some interesting 
 chapters on the popular poetry of the Slavs ; further a " Versuch 
 einer geschichtlichen Charakteristik der Volkslieder Germanischer 
 Nation," also a treatise on the genius of the songs of Ossian. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how the Klaggesang, or the 
 Asanagi7iitza, of which I have spoken before, turns up again and 
 again in these translations. Miss von Jacob translates it, of 
 course more closely than Goethe. Scott had translated it from 
 Goethe's version as early as 1799 for Lewis's Tales of Wonder, 
 but the translation has disappeared. Bowring translates it, of 
 course from the German, and we meet with it likewise in a free 
 and spirited version among the late Lord Lytton's Servian 
 Songs. Finally, we find it where one would be far from looking 
 for it, in that clever mystification by Prosper Merimee, the 
 Guzla, collection of lUyrian folk songs,(^°) which appeared in 1827, 
 and of which I should like to say a few words. The Guzla, Merimee 
 writes to a friend of Pushkin's, was written for two reasons. 
 The first was to make fnn of that local colour which played such 
 an important part in the aesthetic theories of the French Komantic 
 School. The second reason was the following. Merimee and his 
 friend Ampere, discussing with the map before them a journey 
 to Italy with a detour to Dalmatia, for which they wanted 
 nothing but the money, Ampere proposed that they should write 
 the history of their journey, forthwith publish it, and start on the 
 proceeds, and assigned to Merimee the task of making a collec- 
 tion of the songs of the people of Dalmatia. Merimee jumped 
 at the idea, read up Fortis's often named chapter on the Mor- 
 lachs, copying out all Slav words in it, and expanding it at his 
 leisure in a series of prose ballads, which he interspersed with 
 
 (1"^) La Guzla ou Choix de Poesies Illyrujues. Paris, 1827. 
 
88 GOTEHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 essays on the Evil Eye, on Vampirism, and a biography of the 
 minstrel Hiacinth Maglanovich, from whose lips the songs were 
 supposed to have been for the most part collected. Finally, he 
 added a literal translation, obtained with the help of a Russian 
 friend, of the Asanaginitza, which he had taken from Fortis. 
 These so-called poems should not, I believe, deceive anyone 
 really acquainted with Servian folk-song. As a matter 
 of fact they took in many people outside France. Bow- 
 ring, in England, translated them, the Grerman Grerhard, 
 also an acquaintance of Goethe's, did the same, and 
 pretended to have ibund the characteristic forms of Servian 
 poetry in them ; nay, even men who might have known better, 
 the brilliant Polish poet Mickiewich and the Russian poet 
 Pushkin translated the poems, the latter, with his great gift of 
 versification, making rather well-sounding poetry of it in the 
 metre of the old Russian epic songs. 
 
 It does not seem that Goethe was taken in, for already a year 
 later he speaks in Kunst und Alterthum of the work as a 
 clever and amusing mystification, and Ampere, the editor of the 
 journal Globe, who visited him about this time had probably 
 told him all about it. 
 
 This brief sketch of Goethe's contact with Servian folk-song 
 would not be complete if I did not mention that Goethe's appre- 
 ciation of this poetry somewhat diminished during the succeed- 
 ing years of his already long life. In one of the conversations 
 with Eckermann he points out that no lasting benefit can be got 
 from this and other barbaric poetry, or indeed from old German 
 poetry ; that man got gloomy enough through his own passions 
 and experiences, and that he wanted light and cheerfulness,which 
 could only be got in epochs of art and literature where excellent 
 men had got to a complete culture, which made them happy and 
 enabled them to spread their own happiness to others. In other 
 words it is, as he has said so often, the Greeks who ought to be 
 our everlasting models. 
 
 And still later, in March 1830, just two years before his death, 
 he said to the Chancellor Miiller : " What a fine time it was when 
 those Servian songs first came to light, and when we were trans- 
 planted in such a fresh and living way into that peculiar life. 
 Now these things lie far off, and I do not care to hear of them." 
 
GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 89 
 
 But while allowing due weight to these utterances of Goethe, 
 it would not, I think, be wise to exaggerate their importance. 
 It may be easily conceded that Servian folk-song cannot be placed 
 on a level with the best work of the Greek poets, and that it cannot 
 equal the cheering and elevating influence of the latter. But 
 none the less, this Servian national poetry remains, as Jacob 
 Grimm says, in its fulness and dignity a true product of the 
 national mind and the equal of any other folk poetry, and it will 
 surely repay the trouble of anyone who may be induced to take 
 up its study. 
 
 I have no time to speak of Goethe's other points of contact with 
 Slav literature, and especially with Bohemian literature, in which 
 he took considerable interest. It is, however, worth while to 
 notice that the decided revival which during the last ten years of 
 Goethe's life began in the literature of all the main Slav nations 
 was in a large measure based upon the study of folk-song which 
 Herder and Goethe had in a way initiated. 
 
 If the rise of Slav nationality, which had one of its sources in 
 this literary revival, is one of the great facts of this present cen- 
 tury, the poet friends Herder and Goethe may be said to have 
 had their share in it. 
 
6.— SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 By the EEV. F. F. COENISH. 
 
 Paper read 20th February and 18th Matj, 1892. 
 
 I. 
 
 In the year 1814 Goethe was staying at Heidelberg and 
 making a special study of the series of early German paintings 
 which the brothers Boisseree had collected there. His practice 
 was to sit before the easel, on which the pictures were placed one 
 by one, and master each before he went on to the next, and he 
 was to the last degree unwilling to be interrupted or called away 
 from this absorbing employment. One day Frau von Humboldt 
 sent in her name just as Goethe was sitting before Van Eyck's 
 picture of St. Luke painting the Virgin and Child. " I have a 
 surprise in store for you," said Bertram, as he entered the room. 
 " A surprise, sir," said Goethe ; *' you know pretty well what I 
 think about surprises. Who is it?" " Frau von Humboldt." 
 " F-r-a-u v-o-n H-u-m-b-o-l-d-t ? Show her in." And with 
 that Goethe's face perceptibly lengthened and assumed an expres- 
 sion of one who is thoroughly bored. Frau von Humboldt 
 opened the door, and spreading out her arms, exclaimed 
 " Goethe." He rose quietly from his seat and made her sit 
 down beside him. " Do you know how they catch salmon ?" 
 he asked. *' No," replied the lady, quite bewildered at such a 
 reception. " They catch them," he went on, " with a weir ; 
 and just such a weir have these gentlemen made for me, and 
 they have caught me. I beg you to make haste and get away 
 that you may not share my fate. I am caaght once for all and 
 must sit here and look, but it wouldn't do for you, so get away, 
 get away, as fast as you can." As soon as the lady, willy nilly, 
 was hurried out of the room Goethe said " Now come along, we 
 won't have any more interruptions." 
 
 A little more than five years ago, on receipt of a notice from 
 Dr. Hager that it was proposed to form a branch of the English 
 Goethe Society in Manchester, I strolled into the Old Court 
 
SOME OF GOETHE's VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 91 
 
 Eoom at the Owens College just to see what was going on. We 
 were invited to draw near the table, at which Dr. Ward pre- 
 sided, and before I knew where I was I found myself a member 
 of a provisional committee appointed to carry out Dr. Hager's 
 proposal. And, to make a long story short, never was salmon 
 yet more thoroughly impounded, with the result that I have the 
 honour to address you to-night. 
 
 The tableaux which, with songs interspersed, form the main 
 part of to-night's programme represent scenes from Goethe's 
 works, but not Goethe himself. I have, therefore, tried to 
 collect, from the rich stores of anecdotes and recorded sayings of 
 Goethe which have lately been gathered together and published, 
 some which supplement his autobiography, and are not recorded 
 in the current lives, and to string them together into a con- 
 nected whole bearing mainly upon the subject of education. 
 
 The first contemporary glimpse that we get of the Goethe 
 family is a very early one. When his mother was selling the 
 family house in 1795, she speaks of several things for which she 
 could not find room in her apartment, amongst the rest " the 
 famous puppet show, and our family portrait," adding with a 
 frugality worthy of Mrs. Gilpin, "the frame at least of which is 
 still good and the board might be used again for painting over." 
 If Goethe cannot take them the}^ must be sold. And sold the 
 picture accordingly was. But the devotion of Bettina von 
 Arnim rescued it from profane uses, and it was bought and hung 
 in her room. It represented the mother Goethe sitting, just as 
 she used, in all her pride, when telling a story, the father stand- 
 ing beside her in shepherd's dress, one hand stuck into the breast 
 of his jacket, whilst the other falls down on his hip. He makes 
 a face as if not quite pleased with the story, for it is too highly 
 worked up with a view to effect. 
 
 Goethe himself stands close by. He takes no notice of them, 
 but is tying a red ribbon round the neck of a lamb. His sister 
 (Cornelia) is beside him, and in the background are the children 
 who had died, in the guise of spirits. 
 
 " From my father," wrote Goethe, " I get my frame and the 
 steady guidance of my life ; from my dear little mother my 
 happy disposition and love of story telling." And we may add 
 that the son of that father had throuo-h his whole life the thirst 
 
92 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 for knowledge of the man of science, and was an inveterate 
 learner, whilst the son of that mother was, as a literary artist, 
 among the very chosen few, whilst his judgments, whether wide 
 and general, or special and particular, bear the same stamp of a 
 pervading wisdom. And moreover his own bringing up and the 
 circumstances of his time forced upon him almost from the first 
 the necessity of observing and reflecting upon the aims, methods 
 and instruments of education ; whilst the impulse to teach was 
 one of the strongest of his nature. 
 
 His father, unsatisfied with his own bringing up and with 
 what he knew of the heavy pedantry of the public schools, and 
 having time without limit to dispose of, determined, like many 
 other parents in those days, to teach his own children. So 
 Wolfgang and Cornelia were taught together. He hated gram- 
 mar, which seemed to consist mainly of exceptions to arbitrary 
 rules. He hummed his rhyming Latin whilst she learnt Italian, 
 and he picked up Italian from hearing her taught. Greography 
 they learnt in doggerel verses. Their religious teaching was 
 such as touched neither heart nor head. Goethe felt that he 
 had been grounded in nothing, as he might have been by a 
 skilled teacher, though in Rhetoric and Composition he had 
 made remarkable progress. When he at 16 w^ent to Leipsic, 
 his sister was driven almost into rebellion by the severity of the 
 infliction, which there was no one to share with her. What 
 Goethe thought of the Leipsic University teaching is known to 
 the readers of Faust. His own impulse towards letters was such 
 as no outside influences could hinder. But let us see here a 
 picture which has come down to us. 
 
 In a spacious garret of Breitkopf the publisher's house, known 
 as the Silver Bear, at Leipsic, was the living room of Stock the 
 engraver, with his wife and two daughters, Marie and Doris, of 
 whom the former married Korner, and became the mother of 
 Theodor Korner, whilst the latter became an artist. Living 
 at Dresden and being intimate friends of Schiller's, they used 
 to meet Goethe in later life, and their reminiscences of the 
 days when Goethe used to come to learn engraving of their 
 father, earned for them from him the name of ces enfants 
 terribles. 
 
 Their mother's watchful endeavours to prevent the lively 
 
SOME OF Goethe's views on education. 93 
 
 pupil from carrying Stock off from his work to Schonkopf s or 
 to Auerbach's Cellar were duly remembered, as also the 
 tumbled state of his hair, " as full of feathers as if sparrows had 
 built in it," which made their mother call him the Frankfort 
 Strubbelpeter, and summon her unwilling daughters to come 
 and comb it out. On this point, however, Groethe in later times 
 used to protest that Frau Stock loved to comb his hair, and 
 used to purposely tumble it that she might have that pleasure. 
 When Stock asked his pupil of 16 how he should educate his 
 daughters, Goethe replied that he had better teach them 
 nothing but housekeeping. '' Let them be good cooks, and that 
 will be the best for their future husbands." At this time his 
 attention was more taken up with Stock's pet greyhound than 
 with his young daughters, and whilst the dog was supplied with 
 sweetmeats, the girls were told that sugar-plums spoilt the 
 teeth and burnt almonds and nuts the voice. 
 
 The girls were taught, still in the one room, by a dried up 
 Leipsic graduate, who corrected the press in Breitkopf s establish- 
 ment, and with his long perruke, black clothes and white neck- 
 tie tried to pass himself off as a theologian. He used to call out 
 as he entered the door *' To prayer, my children," and the 
 girls repeated in monotone a verse from the hymn-book and 
 then read the Bible. One day when he had chosen what 
 Groethe, who sat by, thought a very unsuitable chapter for young 
 girls, the youth listened till he could stand it no longer, and 
 then snatched the book from them and called out in a furious 
 voice, " Sir, how can you let these girls read such a story ? " 
 The mother had to interfere and keep the peace, but Groethe 
 took the Bible, turned over the pages for a bit, ani finding what 
 he wanted, told Doris to read the Sermon on the Mount for all 
 to hear. When she stammered and could not read for fright^ he 
 took the book, read the whole chapter aloud, and added edifying 
 remarks such as they had never heard from their teacher, who 
 thereupon took courage and suggested with some diffidence that 
 the gentleman was no doubt a theological student, who would 
 prove a pious labourer in the vineyard, and a trusty shepherd of 
 the sheep. " No doubt," said Stock laughing, " he will take his 
 barrel to the cellar and bring his little sheep into a dry place " 
 — "sein Schafchen ins Trockne bringen," that is in English 
 
94 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 ** feather his nest" — '* and he will have plenty of devout 
 penitents to confess to him." 
 
 What I would ask you to note in this picture is that Groethe, 
 who came to Leipsic to study for the law, is here following his 
 natural bent. At Leipsic too he came in contact with Oeser, the 
 director of the Academy of drawing, painting, and architecture, 
 whose influence upon him was lifelong, in directing him to the 
 study of art. 
 
 Next for his views on female education. Kathchen Schonkopf 
 was just then his sweethear-b, and what was good enough for her 
 was, he thought, good enough for all. I know nothing in his 
 writings to show that he drew any line between what he would 
 have women to learn and what men. The women whose society 
 delighted him most were those like Frau v. Stein, Angelica 
 Kaufmann and Marianne v. Willemer, whose minds were 
 amongst the most cultivated of their time. That Goethe even 
 at that early age should not scruple to wrest the teacher's office 
 from the incompetent, the formal, the soulless, will surprise no 
 one who has studied his life and writings. If the gratitude which 
 the spiritually taught feel towards the spiritual teacher is now- 
 less felt among us than when men like Carlyle, Scott, Words- 
 worth, and Southey, expressed it in his lifetime, it is probably 
 largely due to the extent to which in the 60 years which have 
 since elapsed that teaching, though far from exhausted, has 
 passed into the common stock. 
 
 The unsatisfactory character of the public school teaching 
 which drove the father Groethe to teach his own children was 
 one of the causes that prepared the way for the deluge of reform- 
 ing zeal which swept over Europe, heralded by the writings 
 of J. J. Eousseau. In Switzerland, where the new doctrines were 
 eagerly received, La vater represented the religious side of the 
 movement, and Pestalozzi the educational. In Germany the 
 apostle of education was Basedow, and this brings us to our next 
 tableau — the famous dinner scene at Coblenz, whither Goethe, a 
 young man of 26, had gone with Lavater and Basedow, and ate his 
 dinner whilst the two prophets one on either hand held forth. 
 Pestalozzi also paid him a visit at Frankfort. Space forbids me 
 to touch further on Lavater. Basedow lives before us in the 
 pages of Dichtung unci Wahrheit. His small, black, sharp. 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS OX EDUCATION. 95 
 
 deep-set] eyes gleaming from under bristly eyebrows. His 
 strong rougb voice. His habit of never going to bed, but 
 sleeping in his chair, whilst in all his waking moments 
 he dictated without ceasing to his secretary. His bad 
 tobacco and the hateful tinder which Goethe christened 
 the "Basedovian smell-fungus." Impracticable, and failing 
 as a practical school teacher, by his writings he started 
 a movement which covered Germany with teachers and 
 schools. Useful knowledge taught in a natural, amusing, and 
 unpedantic fashion was his specific. The teacher called out to 
 the class in Latin " Imitate the Cobbler," and they did so. 
 He thought of some part of the body, or some animal, and the 
 class guessed one by one the Latin names. His great work was 
 a book of elementary instruction containing matter something 
 like thatoFa modern school reading book. The man's practical 
 nature comes out in his last words : " I wish my body to be 
 dissected for the benefit of my fellow creatures."' To members 
 of the English Goethe Society he is brought near by the 
 fact, that he was great-grandfather to Professor Max Miiller, 
 the first president of the English Goethe Society. 
 
 Pestalozzi — " Father Pestalozzi " as his children called 
 him — was most successful with a limited class whose 
 faculties he called out and trained, and to whom he was 
 father, mother and teacher in one. The miracles by 
 which Pestalozzian teachers mainly aimed at converting 
 outsiders, were feats of rapid and complicated mental 
 calculation ; and as Pestalozzi himself grew old, the tie of 
 affection between teachers and pupils waxed weaker, and the old 
 truth was repeated that in the hands of second and third rate 
 teachers even the best methods become useless or even worse. 
 
 One of Goethe's earliest actions at Weimar, to which he was 
 probably tired by Rousseau's Emile, was to take Fritz von Stein, 
 the youngest son of his dearest friend the Fran von Stein, to 
 live in his house, and we constantly in his letters come across 
 little anecdotes of the lad. To-day Fritz has roused the Geheim- 
 rath in the morning with a slipper ; at night Goethe has seen 
 him warm and softly laid. He has been learning to observe 
 and note what is around him, and later on Goethe has given 
 him a sketch of how he thinks the world arose. He is getting 
 
) 
 96 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 on with his French. He has been been travelling with 
 Goethe and delighting in the new sights. One day the letter 
 from Goethe to the Frau von Stein is written in a beautiful 
 Italian script hand, instead of the German characters, and the 
 explanation is that some engraved copy slips have just come 
 from England, and master and pupil have been taking a writing 
 lesson. One day Goethe has told him to read over some of the 
 petitions w^hich came before him as minister, and Fritz has died 
 of laughing to think that people should complain about such 
 funny things. Children, writes Goethe to his mother, are rare 
 touchstones of truth and falsehood ; they have not nearly the same 
 need for self-deceit as their elders. Instruction in drawing at 
 Goethe's drawing school was a regular part of the lad's educa- 
 tion. In later years Korner, writing to Schiller, says — " Stein 
 is natural, unembarrassed, cheerful, understanding without 
 betraying any remarkable capacity. He is receptive, without 
 a trace of enthusiasm, but not without warmth. I observed him 
 narrowly as an artistic product of pedagogy." Schiller replies 
 that Goethe has really had his education entirely in hand, and 
 has aimed therein at making him thoroughly objective. "I 
 too have always thought his a very gracious nature, and he has 
 at times put me quite out of conceit with what is called 
 ' geniality ' — Genialitdt — since without having a trace of it he is 
 so good and estimable." 
 
 We have a letter which Frau von Stein wrote to Fritz when 
 he was accompanying Goethe on a short tour in September, 
 1783: — " It gives me great pleasure that in the beautiful far- 
 away world you think of me, and can tell me so in writing 
 which if not very well formed is yet tolerably so. Since you 
 are staying away so much longer than I thought you would, I 
 am afraid that your wardrobe must be in a bad way. If your 
 clothes are good for nothing, and you perhaps also, just tell 
 Geheimderath Goethe to throw my dear little Fritz into the 
 water. I have delivered your little letter and given your kind 
 regards to all the pages. I will take care to plant the young 
 bulbs. The young kittens beg to be remembered to you, and 
 jump about and romp tosfether just like the young von Steins 
 used to do. Murz, however, is grown so serious, just like your 
 old mother. Good-bye ; think what a lucky boy you are, and 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 97 
 
 try by your good behaviour to please the Geheimderath. I will 
 give your birthday wishes to Ernst as soon as he comes." 
 
 Groethe's care for Fritz is shown in the letters which he 
 wrote to him from Rome, and the particular anxieties which he 
 expressed both to the Duke and his own Secretary Seidel for 
 the lad's physical and moral well-being. 
 
 But this we naay call dilettante Pedagogism, and if we turn 
 from it to the regular schools for the people we find Groethe 
 writing in 1783 to Herder: " I beg you at the beginning of my 
 new year to put together what you think about our school system 
 in general, and when I come back to talk it over with me. I 
 will gladly lend all the aid in my power towards anything that 
 you consider practicable." 
 
 In default of any contemporary picture of a Saxon village 
 school, may I here interpolate a tableau, dating from 18!^ 3. 
 Great Kochberg was the seat of the Stein family, and the Frau 
 von Stein the lady bountiful of the place, and upon her 81st 
 birthday she received a paper in the writing of her son Karl, 
 and headed 
 
 THE MOST HUMBLE BALLAD 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER OF GREAT KOCHBERG, 
 
 followed by a pen and ink sketch of a village schoolmaster 
 standing with a birch-rod under his arm and by his side four 
 children. The schoolmaster begins : — 
 
 Dearly beloved children mine. 
 
 Hark ! was it not my cow that lowed ? 
 That lovely cow which the Frau von Stein 
 
 Has graciously on us bestowed ? 
 With ploughland, meadow, and garden, too, 
 
 She has founded our school as good as new ; 
 So prick up your ears and list to me, 
 
 Her birthday a day of thanks must be. 
 And in order that each one enjoy it may, 
 
 We'll touch no lesson the livelong day. 
 
 The CmLDREN. 
 Oh! happy day ! for many a year 
 
 Our grateful hearts shall the lady bless ; 
 And while our teacher's joys we share 
 
 Our songs his thanks and ours express. 
 
98 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 Then follows in the handwriting of the Frau von Stein her 
 answer : — 
 
 Such charming ballads, and clever too, 
 
 You teach to your little Kochberg crew, 
 That I myself at your feet would sit, 
 
 But my overripe years will not this permit. 
 When my pilgrim staff I soon resign 
 
 An elegy on my grave be mine. 
 While your pretty cow comes there and lows 
 
 Wishing me pleasant and sound repose. 
 
 The birthday of this kindly old lady, with her fondness for 
 cows, fell not inappropriately upon December 25th. 
 
 There was a drawing school at Weimar which anyone might 
 attend gratis. It was largely used, not only by artisans and 
 others, but by all classes, and Goethe himself lectured the students 
 upon the subject of his favourite anatomy. Many years later he 
 complained that it had not developed as he had hoped into a 
 school of painting, but had been used only for handicrafts and 
 manufactures, and this he says is the regular fate of drawing 
 schools. The letters of the time contain many allusions to its 
 prize days and exhibitions. 
 
 Here is an anecdote dating from 1806, which in these days, 
 when technical instruction is in the air, is full of interest. 
 
 G-oethe and Wieland's passage of arms took place over 
 Tischbein's drawings which he recently sent to the Duchess 
 Mother. Goethe, whilst praising them, spoke much of talent 
 and practice in art, which is to be honoured and praised wherever 
 it is found, be it only in the man who once before Alexander the 
 Great threw a millet seed through a needle's eye. It was 
 charming to see Wieland, after listening patiently for some 
 time, at last revert to the grains of millet, and declare that he 
 found this kind of art so stupid and silly that he would have 
 inflicted some signal punishment upon the man for spending 
 such an unconscionable amount of time in acquiring it. All the 
 technical arts, replied Goethe, by which the English had distin- 
 guished themselves had arisen from the same quality of 
 patient application, and Alexander as a king would have acted 
 very wrongly to treat the man so unhandsomely. He ought 
 much rather to have said to the bystanders : " See, this man 
 has by dint of extraordinary patience and practice reached this 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 99 
 
 point of dexterity. Cannot you reach by the same process some 
 more clever and intelligent result ? " (in etwas Gescheidterm). 
 
 In 1784 Salzmann, a follower of Basedow, started a school, 
 which still flourishes at Schnepfenthal. A young man named 
 Dietmar who was passing through Weimar on his way back from 
 a visit to the place was presented to Goethe, and reports as 
 follows : — 
 
 ^'1 told him all that had interested me in Salzmann's 
 educational institution. The proposal which I had made to 
 Professor Salzmann to teach children Natural History in the 
 evenings by means of a magic lantern pleased him much. ' He 
 has a brother in Erfurt,' said Goethe, ' who is a clever animal 
 painter, and could paint the world of unreasoning creatures for 
 him on glass for this purpose. Convinced as I am,' went on 
 Goethe, ' that it is good and right to teach children Geography 
 betimes, I am yet of the opinion that one ought to begin with 
 the phenomena of plastic nature which are nearest at hand. 
 Everything which makes an impression on their eyes and ears 
 excites their power of observation. Sun, moon and stars, 
 fire, water, snow, ice, clouds, storms, animals, plants and 
 stones are what make the liveliest impressions on children's 
 minds. Children have difficulty too in distinguishing the 
 forms which men have made from natural objects, and I 
 should not be surprised to hear a child ask its father " How 
 do you make trees ? " ' " 
 
 The conversation ranged over different topics and ended with 
 the following " touch of nature." " Passing travellers often plague 
 me," said Goethe, " with long winded visits, and as I am just 
 now a good deal occupied with osteology I sometimes place 
 before them the bones which happen to be at hand, and that 
 bores the visitors and they take their leave. It has not occurred 
 to me to try that plan in your case." 
 
 In 1814 Goethe was at Wiesbaden, where was a noted Pestaloz- 
 ^ian school kept by M. de I'Aspee, to which I should like to 
 introduce you. But first you must make the acquaintance of 
 two of his pupils, daughters of Bergrath Cramer, which you can 
 do by means of the following report of a friend : — 
 
 Fraulein Lade was on a visit to the two daughters of Bergrath 
 Cramer in Wiesbaden, and the three girls were in a room together 
 
100 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 chatting and joking. Suddenly the door from the next room 
 opened and a handsome old man stood in the doorway. " Ha! " 
 said he, '* this is a pretty little company ; there was one voice 
 among them which attracted me." He asked one of the 
 daughters whether she sang, and when she said yes begged for a 
 song. Then the second had to sing, but Fraidein Lade said that 
 she was not musical. "That is the voice," said Goethe at once, 
 and then asked, *' Do you know Goethe's works ? " " No," 
 answered she, " I don't care about them at all." " Indeed ! 
 who is your favourite author ? " " Schiller," said she ; " I delight 
 in him, and know most of his writings by heart." " Ho, ho ! " 
 said Goethe, " then just recite me something — say the beginning 
 of the Bride of Messina." She blushed with surprise, but began 
 at once, " Nicht eigne Wahl," and spoke the whole monologue 
 without hesitation. Goethe clapped applause, and then asked 
 her for "The Diver." He criticised her delivery, told her not 
 to move her hands so much, made her recite it again holding 
 her chair. Then he set to work to spoil her, making her sit by 
 him at table, taking her to the theatre and for drives. One day 
 she sketched from nature, and he asked to see the sketch, and 
 criticised. " Ah ! " she said, " you can do it better than I," 
 and, snatching it away, tore it up. " But there is one thing 
 which I can do which you cannot," and she ran off up a steep 
 path in a vineyard, followed by Goethe, who stumbled, fell, and 
 had to be picked up by some gentlemen from a rather dangerous 
 position . She burst into tears, and he laughed and tried to quiet her. 
 
 It is a comfort to think that school girls were sometimes pert 
 even before the days of Gilbert and Sullivan. 
 
 Next, after the fashion of The Ring and the Book, let me 
 introduce you to M. de I'Aspee, the schoolmaster. 
 
 1814. August 8. He says — " I have just been summoned 
 for the second time to Geheimrath Goethe. I was extremely 
 triad when he said that he should very much like to 
 visit my school. He is coming to-morrow or the next 
 day. He asked whether I myself had been with Pestalozzi. 
 Beyond this I could not talk much with him about the 
 methods, but in my school, if he cannot deny the facts, all must 
 go right ; besides, I did not at all desire to talk with him 
 about the methods before he had been in my school. 
 
SOxME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 101 
 
 Aug. 9. Groethe is just announced : it is 10.30. How glad I 
 am ! If I can only succeed in getting something good from this 
 good man and great from this great man. Grod help me ! Now I 
 set out two chairs. He comes : he is gone! He has just left, and 
 I believe with great contentment. He stayed till one o'clock. In 
 grammar he asked many questions himself. He was much 
 interested in the rnental algebra, and especially in the mental 
 calculations, but above all in an examination in the German 
 language. My fear, however, was that he would look upon the 
 whole as mere display." (In order to guard against the striking 
 results appearing to the uninitiated as something mechanical, 
 merely learnt by heart, De TAspee used to ask all^ strang^^rs^^ 
 and he asked Goethe himself, to conduct' the exaininatioa:.) 
 " When he asked me with satisfaction," coiitiv,ues the excellent 
 teacher, "to continue the examination, I fook'anocher branch of 
 language of which my children had heard nothing as they them- 
 selves assured him. First of all I must say that it was new to 
 myself. But I have only to try anything with the children in 
 order to succeed in it." 
 
 Goethe, with whom was Herr Cramer, went away seemingly 
 delighted, and sent copies of Hermann und Dorothea, as presents 
 for the best pupils. They were even emboldened by his 
 approval to call upon him on their teacher's birthday, and beg 
 him to put their congratulatory wishes into verse. Goethe 
 complained at first that the piece of paper which they had 
 brought was too small ; but then he took the paper, spaced the 
 lines, filled them in, counting the while the feet of the verses 
 with the top of his pen. And then he sketched below in ink a 
 rising sun, and between the beams he wrote the names of the 
 pupils, which he made them tell him. M. de I'Aspee's sun had 
 indeed risen I Let us hope that be did not live long enough to 
 read the correspondence of the brothers Boisseree. 
 
 And now for another account of the matter. On the following 
 year one of these brothers had been sitting with Goethe and a 
 friend or two over their Ehine wine, when as he tells us : — 
 
 "The mining superintendent Cramer's daughter, a quiet, fresh, 
 unaffected girl of sixteen, came in. Goethe rallied her on her 
 grand Pestalozzian arithmetic, told us about the school here, 
 and gave her no rest until she set herself a problem and solved 
 
102 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 it in numbers not symbols. It was a complicated task of three 
 unknown quantities of which only the mutual relations were 
 given. My head grew quite dizzy at the solution: which at 
 first I absolutely could not follow ; but afterwards it was 
 made clear to me by the exactness of the method with 
 which the child gave forth the dry abstractions, which 
 generally one never hears except in mathematical lecture 
 rooms, and the satisfaction with which the little head 
 handled the abstract numbers and relations ; the way it 
 delivered itself and reasoned the while about this art, why it 
 was called elementary instruction, though, as Groethe pointed 
 ;oidt5 it went far beyond this, inasmuch as everyone finds and 
 discovers 'everything for himself: and, last of all, she explained 
 khbxit' alg^l^r^, feqteations, and such like — all this with the self- 
 possessed air of a schoolmaster. I was actually frightened at it." 
 
 And lastly for Goethe himself. 
 
 " When we came home in the dusk at about ten Groethe made 
 his lament over this Pestalozzian system. He said ' how excel- 
 lent it had been in its first aim and intention, in which Pestalozzi 
 had only had a small class of people in view, i.e,, the poor men 
 who live in isolated huts in Switzerland and cannot send their 
 children to school ; but that it became the most pernicious thing 
 in the world so soon as it passed beyond the first elements and 
 was applied to language, art, and all branches of knowing and 
 doing, which necessarily pre-supposed a traditional element, and 
 in which one could not go to work with unknown quantities 
 and abstract forms and numbers. And then, too, the self- 
 conceit that this cursed sort of education produced. If I could 
 only just see the boldness of the little boys in the school here, 
 who showed no alarm at the sight of any stranger — nay, rather 
 caused him alarm. There was an end of all respect, of every 
 mutual feeling which made men such. What would have become 
 of me,' he said, ' if I had not always been obliged to hold others 
 in respect ? And these men, with their crack-brained rage for 
 reducing everything to the single individual, and their mere 
 deification of independence ; these men think to form a nation, 
 and make a stand against the wild masses when they have once 
 mastered the elementary exercise of the understanding, which, 
 thanks to Pestalozzi, has now been made a perfectly easy task. 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 103 
 
 What has become of the religious, what of the moral, philoso- 
 phical maxims which can alone protect us ? ' He clearly felt 
 himself impelled to pour out his heart to me on all this subject, 
 and I myself was full of it ; it came to me like an announcement 
 of the last day." 
 
 With reference to these deliverances of Goethe's, in 
 August, 1815, it is interesting to note that in his dis- 
 course to the members of his institution at Yverdun, on New 
 Year's Day, 1 808, Pestalozzi surprised them all by his gloom. 
 He had a coffin brought in and stood beside it. " This work," 
 said he,'" was founded by love, but love has disappeared from our 
 midst." Urged by the masters, he applied for a Grovernment 
 inquiry into the state of things, and the report of the Commis- 
 sioners was drawn up by Pere Girard, of Freiburg. The report 
 was unfavourable, and said that far too much stress was laid on 
 mathematics. Pestalozzi told Pdre Girard that everything 
 taught to a child should be as certain as that two and two made 
 four. " Then," said Girard, " if I had thirty children I would not 
 entrust you with one of them. You could not teach him that I 
 was his father." Comparing the performances of the scholars with 
 what pupils of the same age could do in good schools of the ordi- 
 nary type, Pere Girard stated, though not in the report, that the 
 Institution was inferior to the Cantonal School of Aargau." 
 
 For other examples of Goethe's visits to schools cf. Ges-p. 776, 
 779, 780, 799. For his proposal to employ women in certain 
 branches oi'' Finanz und Kammerwesen^' cf. 339. 
 
7.— SOME OF GOETHKS VIEWS ON 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 II. 
 
 The paper which I read at our public meeting owed its 
 character and extent to the circumstances of the case, and I wish 
 to-night to complete it. I aimed especially at bringing out in a 
 sketchy way Groethe's connexion with the educational influences 
 of his time. We saw him as a boy taught side by side with his 
 sister. As a student at Leipsic partly forsaking letters, and 
 devoting himself to art. In early manhood he met both 
 Pestalozzi and Basedow, the founders of systems and institu- 
 tions in which as a man he was interested. At Weimar he 
 studied and taught physical science, and we have notes of his 
 lectures taken by Fraiilein Gochhausen. He founded a drawing 
 school, of which there is a notice in this year's Jahrbuch 
 (Vol. xiii. p. 128). He also personally undertook the education 
 of Fritz von Stein, as a piece of dilettante pedagogism. In 1786 
 he broke away to Kome and gratified what he calls in the case of 
 Winckelmann his *' Begierde des Schauens," his longing to be 
 brought face to face with things of nature and still more of art. 
 Eeturning home he found for the first time in Schiller one who 
 was like himself a *' master," with enough of likeness and enough 
 unlikeness to stimulate each to the exercise of his powers. 
 
 My paper left off after describing Groethe's visit to a Pesta- 
 lozzian school, which interested him keenly, and reporting the 
 very unfavourable opinion which he expressed upon that system. 
 To-night I wish to take the matter up at this point and to 
 bring out if I can Groethe's views upon (1) Educational 
 methods and (2) The scope and nature of culture, and this I 
 hope to make clearer by bringing out somewhat fully, mostly in 
 his own words, his relations of action and reaction,with one who, 
 
SOME OF CtOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 105 
 
 whilst in his prime, was in his own line one of the greatest 
 teachers that ever lived — Friedrich August Wolf, and in every 
 sense what Groethe called a *' master."* 
 
 Goethe's views on methods, educational or otherwise, were an 
 integral part of his general view of things human. Without 
 going so far back as to his estimate of man as the greatest 
 and most perfect physical apparatus that there can be 
 (Zelter p. 62), which led him to object to the introduction 
 of mathematical calculations into such matters as the 
 nature of colour and light, and brought him into 
 collision with Newton's theory of optics, we may say 
 that he considered that all branches of art and science depended 
 for their being and their continuance upon the existence of 
 " the master." So much of the practice of the master as can 
 be reduced to rules may be embodied in methods, but methods 
 properly speaking are subjective whilst the object remains the 
 same, and is as a rule sufficiently known. [Gesp. ii, 323.) f 
 
 Let me try to bring out briefly the meaning of Goethe's 
 objection to the Pestalozzian method as he had seen it employed 
 in M. de I'Aspee's school. The keynote of it all is struck in the 
 words, " Where should I have been ? " To one who looks upon 
 education as a whole reaching from the cradle to the bier, 
 methods of education fall into their proper places, and apart from 
 the personal qualities of the teachers they can, when all is said 
 and done, only do the work of methods. And the work of 
 methods is briefly twofold. 
 
 (1.) By timely and proper grounding to check the shocking 
 waste of intellectual life which, especially in the early stages, is 
 as common as the early waste of physical life, and 
 
 (2.) By this means to secure that the pupil shall approach 
 the next stages with a mind fitted to receive the higher teaching, 
 and especially that he shall neither be disgusted and disheartened 
 by the weariness which dry, repulsive, and unintelligent teaching 
 
 * For a fuller account of Wolf I must refer to Mark Pattison's Essays, Vol. i., 
 337, and the excellent edition of Goethe's letters to him by 3f. Bcrnays. 
 
 t " Methode ist das was dem Subject angehort, denn das Object ist ja bekannt. 
 Methode lasst sich nicht iiberliefern. Es muss ein Individuum sich finden.dem die 
 gleiche Methode Bediirfniss ist" (iii. 8. W.). 
 
106 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 produces, nor puffed up with self-conceit and the idea that he 
 already knows all that there is to be known. 
 
 And the consideration of this fact made Goethe so dissatisfied 
 with the condition of education in his day, that is, with the 
 perpetual experimenting, groping, and wandering in search of 
 the true method (Versuchen, Tasten und Wandern nach der 
 wahren Erziehungsart). The happy few learners who are not 
 dependent on method, the happy few teachers whose inspiration 
 and devotion is contagious, are the true normal standards of the 
 highest that learners or teachers can accomplish even in the 
 elementary regions. 
 
 And so in Groethe's Educational Utopia, the account of the 
 Pedagogical Province in Meister's Wanderjahre^ about the only 
 practical suggestion is that the teacher should find out any 
 special aptitude of the pupil ; but beyond this the main stress is 
 laid upon the moral and spiritual elements, and the discipline of 
 the three reverences — the reverence for what is above us, the 
 reverence for what is beneath us, and the reverence for what is 
 on our own level. 
 
 Looked at from this point of view M. de I'Aspee, with his 
 method of quick returns, his display, and what would nowadays 
 be called his demonstrations, probably struck him as being some- 
 what of a charlatan. Now, in a letter to Von Fritsche, Goethe 
 expressed the opinion that for a fencing master he did not think 
 that his being a bit of a charlatan was necessarily a drawback, 
 but no doubt for a trainer and educator of the young he would 
 have considered it to be quite a different matter. As to his 
 social fears, we may freely admit that, just as he had underrated 
 the forces which were conspiring against Napoleon, so he may 
 well have overrated those which were threatening to break up 
 still further so much of the old order of things as the French 
 Revolution had left remaining. (Cf. G. Jb. Vol. xiii, 132). 
 
 It is certainly not an insignificant fact that in Wolf's preface 
 to Winckelmann's letters {Winch, p. 9) which certainly had 
 Goethe's imprimatur he should have spoken of Basedow's 
 " Inusitata et optima methodus erudiendse juventutis, 1752" 
 as ''a science unknown to the ancients and which has not even yet 
 spread far over our borders, but which has since then filled so 
 many reams of paper and emptied so many heads in Germany." 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 107 
 
 Looking, then, at his life as a whole, Groethe says that under 
 his father's dilettante pedagogism he never got properly 
 grounded in anything, and probably a little Pestalozzian method 
 under a proper teacher and at a proper time would have pre- 
 vented this. 
 
 But the matter troubled him little or not at all. It was only 
 one of the small miscarriages to which man's best directed efforts 
 are liable. He had in the later stages, after the elementary was 
 passed, enjoyed to the full the advantages which his time had to 
 offer even to such happy natures as his. They are predestined 
 to reach the goal, whether with or without assistance, but they 
 are unspeakably helped by the association of kindred spirits, and 
 especially those who by their devotion to other branches of the 
 great whole keep alive the sense of wholeness which is essential 
 to the proper co-ordination of the parts. For here it is the 
 contact of the taught with the teacher, mind to mind, soul to 
 soul, and here the method-monger is a simple intruder. Roger 
 Bacon, the monk, with his spirit of observation and experiment, 
 is worthy of the highest praise {Gesp. ii. 190; cf. Pattison's 
 Milton), whilst Francis Bacon of Verulam, with his method 
 which almost makes all minds equal, is a prime Philistine. 
 Is painting languishing and neglected ? Let but a Raffaelle 
 arise, and all that will end. 
 
 This is his account of Culture (Bildung)ythe aim of education. 
 " Culture starts from some one path into the wood, but is not 
 completed by it. One-sided culture does not deserve the name. 
 One must start from some one point, but may approach the goal 
 from different sides. It is quite indifferent whether one starts 
 to gain his culture from the mathematical, or philological, or 
 artistic side, provided he gains it, but it cannot consist of these 
 sciences only. Single sciences are just as it were the senses 
 with which we stand face to face with things ; the philosophy or 
 science of sciences is the sensus communis. But just as it 
 would be absurd if a man tried to let hearing take the place of 
 seeing, or seeing take the place of hearing, and strove to see 
 sounds instead of hearing them, so it is absurd to let mathe- 
 matics take the place of other means of knowledge and vice 
 versa, and the same with the rest, or it results in fancied know- 
 ledge. And that is why there are so many dreamers {Phan- 
 
108 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 tasten) who, lacking positive knowledge, by means of the fanci- 
 ful combination of the current talk about the sciences gain for 
 themselves a reputation for deep insight into one and all. 
 Exempla sunt odiosa — It would be odious to particularize. " 
 
 As an application to particular cases, I would quote the follow- 
 ing reported conversations of Goethe, one upon the value of the 
 classics in education, which of course refers to the fag end of 
 the Renascence, and the other upon the question of learning or 
 not learning Latin. 
 
 *' For almost a hundred years the classics (Humaniora) have 
 lost their effect upon the character of the student, and it is a 
 real good fortune that nature has come in between, and drawn 
 off the interest to herself and opened to us a way to the study of 
 humanity {zur Humanitdt) from, her side. That classical studies 
 do not form the character ! It is by no means necessary that all 
 men should study them. The knowledge, be it historical, anti- 
 quarian, belletristic and artistic, which is derived from antiquity 
 and belongs thereto, has now been so spread abroad that there is 
 no need to draw it immediately from the ancients unless a'man 
 is minded to put his life into them. And even in that case 
 again this culture is only one sided, and no better than any 
 other one sided, indeed it has this additional drawback, that it 
 cannot be or become productive." 
 
 The following is from a letter of Johanna Schopenhauer 
 to her son Arthur {Gesp. Vol. ii., 146) : — " Lastly we 
 talked about Latin— how necessary it was and how little 
 it was now learnt. I said that you had not been able 
 to learn it at all in your childhood, although you understand 
 living languages perfectly with ease. Goethe said he was not 
 surprised at it ; it was terribly difficult, and in this case no help 
 was to be got from methods, one's whole childhood must be 
 devoted to it. * If ten sovereigns lie upon the table it is easy 
 enough to sweep them up, but if they lie deep in an old well 
 covered with stones, rubbish and bushes, it is quite another 
 thing ; a child may crawl in with a good deal of trouble, but a 
 grown man must leave them where they are.' I said that never- 
 theless you were anxious to learn Latin, but that I would dis- 
 suade you. This he said I ought on no account to do ; something 
 would be sure to stick by you in such cases, and if you still were 
 
SOME OF GOETHE's VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 109 
 
 inclined to do so, it would be very good and useful although 
 you could never bring it to perfection." 
 
 In the middle of August, 1805, Henke, Groethe and Wolf had 
 joined to pay a visit to Herr von Hagen. Late one evening the 
 party sat down to table more for the sake of entertainment than 
 eating. The host produced a bottle of his best wine, such as he 
 reserved for particular guests, and remarked that this bottle was 
 one year older than Groethe and himself, who were both born in 
 1749. Henke, who just then had a bad neck, had drunk little 
 wine, and wished for that night to drink no more, but had 
 begged for a glass of beer. Thereupon the cheerful host, as was 
 his way, wished to get him to taste his particular wine, and a 
 joke arose which caused much mirth. Then Herr von Hagen 
 appointed Groethe as judge and arbiter against Henke. " It's no 
 good, your Keverence, to-day you must submit to his Excellency.'^ 
 Then Groethe decided that every one should, by the best means 
 that he could, invite and urge Henke to taste the wine. " This old 
 gentleman here," he said to Hagen, " who is, 1 hear, a staunch 
 Kantian, must do it in the form of a syllogism to which Henke 
 can take no exception. Wolf must call upon him in Grreek after 
 the manner of Anacreon." Then he looked at me, and I declined, 
 saying that in a symposium of such men I went for nothing. 
 But the host would not hear of it, and said, " Nonsense. This 
 gentleman makes verses, let him contribute his mite." " Very 
 good," said Groethe, '* be quick and make a couplet. Henke, 
 however, may defend himself, but he must only do it in Latin, 
 of which he is such a master." " No," said Henke, " there sits 
 the man (pointing to Wolf) who has founded a fifth faculty, that 
 of Philology, and will not pardon me a single mistake. It would 
 be rashness to come before him with theological Latin." " When 
 the first glass is drunk and the second poured out," said Goethe, 
 " each must be ready, and if Henke is vanquished we will all 
 drink with him to his very good health." (Gesp. Vol. ii., 16.) 
 
 This anecdote, which recalls Jos. Scaliger's saying : — " In 
 conviviis autem philosophorum non de vectigalibus reipublicse, 
 neque profecto de mathematicis aut gravioribus studiis agitur, 
 sed de iis quse bellaria sunt coense, hoc est de frivolis " (Jos. 
 Scaligeri Epp. p. 504), may serve as our introduction to 
 Friedrich August Wolf, the author of the famous Prolegomena to 
 
110 SOME OF Goethe's views on education. 
 
 Homer, the creator of the faculty of Philology, and, as a teacher 
 in this subject, without a rival. To-night we are concerned 
 with him as a friend of Goethe, and I shall try to point out 
 wherein his chief importance for the Goethe student as such 
 consists. 
 
 And first, I would dismiss somewhat briefly the influence 
 of the Prolegomena upon Goethe. Those who heard 
 Dr. Hager's paper on Goethe and Hom^r, and Professor 
 Herford's paper on Goethe's Epic Poetry, will be aware that we 
 largely owe to Wolfs Prolegomena and the view of the origin 
 of the Homeric Poems which they aimed at establishing, the 
 impulse which led Goethe to write Hermann und Dorothea, and 
 the AchiUeu, and generally his use of the hexameter metre, as 
 well as that at a later date Goethe returned to his earlier belief 
 in a real Homer, the author of the poems which bear his name. 
 I shall confine myself, therefore, to an episode which throws 
 light upon Goethe's education in Philology, and which might 
 have wrecked their friendship at the first starting. 
 
 Wolfs Prolegomena were written in Latin, and it was in 
 January, 1795, that Goethe saw at Wilhelm von Humboldt's 
 some pages of them. 
 
 Writing to Schiller on May 17th, 1795 (Vol. i., 70), Goethe 
 said "Wolfs preface to the Iliad I have read ; it is interesting 
 in its way, but did not edify me much. The idea may be good, 
 and the trouble he has taken is considerable, if only men of 
 this stamp did not lay waste the most productive gardens of the 
 realm of aesthetics, and transform them into mere fortifications 
 to cover their own weak points. In fact there is more 
 subjective matter in all this business than one would imagine." 
 
 In June, however, von Humboldt was able to write to Wolf 
 ^' I have urged Goethe to read through the Iliad in the light of 
 your Prolegomena, and I hope that he will do so ; " at the same 
 time he reported that Goethe was seriously occupied with the 
 Prolegomena, greatly pleased with them, and especially 
 interested in the methods and course of the inquiry, and finding 
 in this respect fresh instruction in each page. But he added, 
 *' It is true, however, that he is as yet very far from having come 
 to a decided opinion on the subject : You know his wise delibera- 
 tion." {Seine lueise Bedachtsamkeit.) 
 
SOME OF GOETHE S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. Ill 
 
 In the September number of the Horen^ which Schiller edited, 
 appeared an article by Herder, entitled Homer ein Gilnstling 
 der Zeit * which Groethe praised heartily and unreservedly. The 
 essay seemed to him to be excellent, and a great ornament to 
 the Horen. Imagine their surprise, when in ih.e Allgemeine 
 Literaten-Zeitung of October 24th, there was advertised an 
 extract in Grerman from Professor Wolf's Prolegomena to 
 Horner^ and an explanation respecting an essay in the ninth 
 number of the Horen. 
 
 And when it came the discourse was, as Bernays says — " one 
 of unsparing bitterness." From the height of his scientific 
 consciousness the Philologian with derisive contempt repulsed 
 the attempt of the presumptuous smatterer {Halbkenner), 
 to whom the mental attitude in which so extremely 
 complicated a task of historical criticism is to be 
 approached and the knowledge which it pre-supposes were 
 almost absolutely unknown — the half-instructed man who pro- 
 nounces with boldness and confidence where the man of true 
 knowledge seeks to make good his suppositions with modest cir- 
 cumspection. He poured his contempt upon the apocalyptic 
 style in which the matters which are the real points at issue are 
 advanced : he condemned the whole essay as a hash of common- 
 place and undigested thoughts, and he treated Herder's as a bare- 
 faced attempt to rob him of the credit of his laboriously estab- 
 lished discovery. Schiller thought the matter serious, and that 
 something in the shape of an answer to the Philistine might be 
 expected from Herder, at least he might be held up to ridicule. 
 Groethe thought there must be an answer, but counselled delay 
 and that the attacks made upon the Horen should be treated of 
 ail at once — " such things burn better in bundles." In the end 
 nothing was done. Herder died in December, 1803, having been 
 for several years estranged from Goethe and Schiller, and when 
 Schiller died in May, 1805, W. von Humboldt coidd write to 
 Wolf as one who had often and gladly met him [oft und gem 
 sahen). 
 
 But it was Groethe who by his whole nature was drawn towards 
 
 * This seams to mean " A favoured child of time," something in tha sense of 
 Bacon's "Temporis partus potius quam ingenii." 
 
112 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 Wolf. Of old Herder had been his inspirer and guide in classical 
 as in many other matters. Groethe's letters and the pages of the 
 Gelehrte Anzeigen testified to his influence, and the lines in 
 which Faust speaks to Wagner re-echo the dislike of a " cold 
 objectivity " which was essentially a note of Herder's teaching. 
 In the first ten years at Weimar Goethe had been devoting his 
 laborious leisure to Natural Science rather than to the classics. 
 Of Greek he did not know much, the Koman writers he dared not 
 touch as they drew him too strongly towards Italy. All his Latin 
 Herder said he got from Spinoza. And during these years and 
 those which followed he had referred to Herder as his principal 
 authority on matters of metre and classical scholarship generally. 
 
 But Herder's essay in the Horen came 20 or 30 years after its 
 time. Wolf had been trained, or rather had trained himself, in a 
 widely different school. Born at a time when the classics barely 
 held their own as a means of education by virtue of their use in 
 interpreting the Scriptures and the Civil Law [Corpus JtcWs), the 
 best thing that could happen to him was to be thrown upon his 
 own resources with the run of a library. Others — to some 
 extent Winckelmann— had gone through a similar experi- 
 ence, and Goethe, to whom Wolf had lent Wyttenbach's 
 life of Kuhnken to beguile his leisure at Lauchstedt, wrote 
 that he had enjoyed it all the more in that he had believed 
 the while that he was for the most part reading about Wolf. 
 
 As a result of this training Wolf had turned out 
 a Philologian — and for the Philologian, as Wolf tells 
 us, although as a lesser of two evils, it is better (as 
 Longinus said of poetry) that a man should have a high spirit 
 and yet make some mistakes, than be endowed with the spirit- 
 less diligence which makes none — yet the laws of historical 
 inquiry, just as the philological criticism which is its basis, 
 demand a rare mixture of coolheadedness and a minute, unrest- 
 ing watchfulness over a hundred things, each insignificant in 
 itself, with an all vivifying fire which consumes the particular, 
 and a gift of divination which to the uninitiated is a stumbling 
 block. {G. Werke v. 46, p. 96.) 
 
 And this description of the Philologian 's qualifications we may 
 supplement by Goethe's words (ibid. p. 55), where he accounts for 
 the fact that of all students of his time the Philologian s seemed to 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 113 
 
 be the only ones who had with impunity neglected the great con- 
 temporary development of speculation which took its rise from 
 Kant, and attributes it to the peculiar nature of their pursuit, 
 " For since they busy themselves only with the best which the 
 world has produced, and only consider the second rate and even 
 the bad in its relation to that best, their knowledge acquires a 
 fulness, their judgment a sureness, their taste a consistency 
 which makes them appear within the limits of their own circle 
 to have reached a wondrous not to say astonishing degree of 
 perfection." 
 
 In fact, Wolf claims for the judgment of the true critic a 
 certainty not inferior to that attainable in the exact sciences. 
 {Wolf, p. 53.) 
 
 When, therefore, in 1805, after Schiller's death. Wolf 
 came on May 30th with his daughter on a visit to 
 Groethe at W^eimar (Tag und Jahreshefte 1805), he came 
 as it were opportunely to supply the place which that death 
 had left vacant, and he came with his keen, unresting, sharply 
 questioning temper, and as the champion of a study which in 
 its modern form he had created, and of which he was the first 
 living master without a second. With the Weimar circle and 
 its interests in natural science and art his point of contact was 
 not nature, for he knew nothing about it, but art, the art of 
 Grreece and Rome. 
 
 For himself he had made the written remains of those countries 
 his study. He knew the authors in respect of time and place. 
 He had mastered the diction and style of each in connexion 
 with the spirit and sense which distinguished him, and begin- 
 ning with the letters worked upwards through the syllables to 
 the rhythm, the cadence of the sentences — from the collocation 
 of the words to the interweaving of the clauses. Could there 
 be any evidence, could there be any proof to compare for con- 
 clusiveness with what was thus obtained ? 
 
 " Yes," said Groethe and the W^eimar friends, " there is that of 
 art. The evidence of art — plastic art — upon questions of time 
 and place, master, scholar, original and copy, predecessor 
 and successor is just as trustworthy, the judgment of 
 the properly equipped critic is just as decisive." Note 
 that in both cases the effort was directed towards enabling 
 
 I 
 
114 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 the present to pronounce upon the past. The discussions 
 were amicable but lively ; they enabled each side to clear 
 their miads both as to their own subject and that of the 
 other, but beyond this they could not go, for, as Groethe remarks, 
 it is hard, nay impossible, unless man has without love or passion 
 devoted himself to any study (subject of thought — Betrachtung) 
 and has thereby attained by little and little to more exact know- 
 ledge and skill in comparison (Vergleichungsfdhigkeit)^ to give 
 him even the faintest apprehension (Ahnung) of what has to be 
 decided upon {des zu Unterscheidenden) , inasmuch as in the 
 last resource in such cases a demand upon our faith and confi- 
 dence must be made. 
 
 When J. J. Scaliger in 1590 accepted the invitation of the 
 authorities to settle at Leyden he stipulated that he should not 
 have to lecture. To Wolf, who hated writing, lecturing was as the 
 breath of his nostrils. Goethe paid a return visit to him at 
 Halle, and by favour of Wolfs daughter sitting in a room which 
 opened into his lecture room, with only a curtain between, 
 listened more than once to his lectures and recorded the admira- 
 tion which he felt for them. As a result of the Weimar dis- 
 cussions we have Goethe's edition of some of Winckelmann's 
 letters with three introductory chapters, of which Goethe contri- 
 buted the first, Meyer the second, and Wolf a third, bearing 
 upon the nature of Winckelmann's classical education as a pre- 
 paration for his life's work. And it is interesting to read in 
 Goethe's letters one in which he sketches just the line which he 
 wants Wolf to take. 
 
 On October 14, 1806, was fought the battle of Jena, and as it 
 were a deluge passed over the land. On the 28th November 
 Goethe wrote to Wolf: " Why cannot I, my honoured friend, on 
 receiving your dear letter, like one of those Swedenborgian 
 spirits which often prayed (ausbaten) to be allowed to take 
 possession of the sensible faculties of their master, and to look 
 out upon the world through that medium, sink my individuality 
 in yours for a moment and impart to you the consoling views 
 and feelings with which the consideration of your nature fills 
 me ? Compared to thousands how happy are you at this moment, 
 in the riches which you possess in and by yourself, not only those 
 of the intellect and character or temperament, but in the extent 
 
SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 115 
 
 to which by your great preparatory studies you are already pre- 
 pared for such various toils— a preparation which is entirely 
 and inseparably your own. 
 
 " Could I therefore in the aforesaid magical fashion take posses- 
 sion of you. I should excite you to take stock of your riches, to 
 realise your power, and to take in hand at once, if only for the 
 immediate future, some literary work. You have the facility of 
 expressing yourself (mitzutheilen) whether by word of mouth or 
 in writing. The former method has up to this time had, and 
 rightly, a great charm for you. For under the re-action of an 
 audience a man is much more easily roused to a state of vigorous 
 mental activity than when sitting face to face with the patient 
 manuscript. Often too, the best lecture is a happy impromptu, 
 for the simple reason that the mouth is bolder than the pen. 
 
 " But there is yet another consideration. To express oneself 
 in writing, has the great merit that its influence is wider and of 
 longer life than that by word of mouth, and that the reader has 
 more difficulty in wresting to his own meaning what is written 
 than what is spoken. 
 
 '' Since then, my dearest friend, the one form of exposition is, 
 perhaps only for a short time, denied to you, why will you not at 
 once have recourse to the other for which you have at once just 
 as great a gift and almost richer material ? It is true, and I am 
 quite aware that in doing so you would have to make a great 
 change in your manner of life and working. But what is there 
 that is not changed ? and, while the world goes round, happy is 
 he who can also revolve on his own axis. New reflections crowd 
 in upon us, we live under new conditions, and, therefore, is it 
 also natural that we should at least in some degree accommodate 
 ourselves to new conditions. You have hitherto used only to 
 produce whole works and to submit all that you print to the 
 most severe tests. Determine now to write shorter pieces, and 
 these will still be more in the nature of books than many 
 another thing. Why cannot you at once take in hand your 
 Archaeology and issue it as a compendious sketch ? -Treat it 
 again and again as a rough draft, and after a couple of years 
 re-write it and publish it again. In the meantime it will have 
 been producing its effect, and this effect will in its turn lessen 
 the later toil. In order that you may not want for inducements. 
 
116 SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 set before yourself at once a variety of tasks and begin to print 
 before you have quite fully made up your mind. The world 
 and posterity will be able to congratulate themselves upon so 
 much good ai'ising from our misfortunes. For I have more than 
 once felt distressed to think that such precious words were 
 expended on the walls of the lecture room. In this way you can 
 keep to yourself through the winter, which is the best thing 
 that a man can do just now. For when one looks this way and 
 walks that way all looks a mass of wild confusion, and the 
 general evil just splits up into countless separate tales, the ever- 
 lasting repetition of which fills the imagination full of hateful 
 and disturbing pictures, and at last even gets the better of a 
 calm mind. But if six months pass we can better see what is 
 being restored or what is lost ; whether one must stay where one 
 is, or whether one must move away ; and this last is a necessity 
 which should only be accepted in the very last resort. For the 
 earth all around is quaking, and in a storm it does not matter 
 much upon which ship of the fleet one finds oneself. 
 
 " So much, then, upon this weighty question — perhaps too 
 much. I speak just as I feel, and I can tell you what I think, 
 but not make you think it. 
 
 " In the meantime, I am acting up to my own precept. I am 
 getting on tolerably quickly with the printing of my Theory of 
 Colours. I think of very soon giving to the press a sketch of 
 Morphology, and fixing in words, at least to some extent, my 
 dreams about the Formation and Transformation of Organised 
 Beings. I see in the proof sheets from Tiibingen that the first 
 edition of my aesthetic works will soon come out ; and in this 
 way one must, in expectation of better times, use the present 
 time, and tide it over as well as one can. A thousand times 
 farewell, with a lively hope of an early meeting, and one of 
 some duration, for, alas I the last was antediluvian." 
 
 I must not detain you with the story of the letter which 
 Goethe received from Wolf unsigned and undated, upon a piece 
 of paper much like a Papyrus leaf about three or four fingers 
 broad, and ruled for money, upon which he comments in the 
 style of a classical editor. Then follow the years in which Wolf, 
 who never recovered from the effects of the French invasion, 
 missed his vocation, got wrong with his friends, and finally died 
 
SOME OF Goethe's views on education. 117 
 
 in 1824 at Marseilles. In May, 1826, Groethe wrote to Zelter : 
 " If one reflects that so many men of worth yet after all float 
 away like drops of oil on water, and only touch one another at 
 most at one point, one can understand how often in life one is 
 cast back into loneliness. Meanwhile such a long association as 
 ours with Wolf was may, for all that, have influenced us and 
 helped us forward more than we thought and knew." 
 
 How far Goethe had been influenced by Wolf we may 
 gather from what he wrote to Zelter after the death 
 of Niebuhr in 1831, about eighteen months before his 
 own end, where he speaks of having received from 
 the author the second volume of Niebuhr's History 
 of Rome, a work conceived quite in the spirit of Wolf. It 
 had come to him just at the right moment, when he had given 
 up all newspaper reading, " In this way," he says, " I have been 
 living with him for nearly a month as with a living man. I 
 have read through the work, which is really a terrible one to look 
 at, and have wound my way through the labyrinth of the ' to 
 be or not to be ' of legends and traditions, stories and evidences, 
 laws and revolutions, public offices, and their metamorphoses, 
 and thousands of other contrasts and contradictions; I was 
 just about to send him a friendly reply, such as he 
 could not have expected to receive from any of his 
 colleagues, near or far, nor from the initiated of any class. 
 For as I had read and studied his book for his own sake, I was 
 best able to express what he had done for me, and that was just 
 what he wanted to do, for I was satisfied with what he affirmed, 
 whereas professional men, as is their wont, necessarily begin to 
 doubt again at the very point where he thought he had made an 
 end of it. This unexpected blow of Fate, in addition to my 
 other anxieties, is most untoward ; and now I do not know of a 
 single soul with whom I could confer on the subject." 
 
 It is interesting to reflect that when Matthew Arnold in the 
 highest classroom of a Grerman Classical School had his thoughts 
 carried back to the Sixth Form at Eugby under his father, he 
 was only recognising in its native home the working of that 
 spirit which had been transmitted to Rugby mainly through 
 Niebuhr's History. 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Dedication by Wolf of the First Volume of the "Museum 
 
 OF THE Science of Antiquities" (Alterthums- 
 
 Wissenschaft), 1807. 
 
 To Goethe who knows and exemplifies the Grecian spirit : Receive 
 graciously what is offered, offered in love, the beginning of a collection 
 of writings and essays which have for their aim to illuminate various 
 points in the vast structure of sciences in which that life-adorning 
 spirit originally dwelt. 
 
 And, in such an undertaking, who of all Germans will more readily 
 occur to our minds than he, in whose works and essays, in the midst 
 of hideous modern surroundings, that beneficent spirit found itself a 
 second dwelling place ? To him above all others would our thoughts 
 turn, even if his friendly summons to new and varied activity had not 
 been addressed to one of our editorial body, a summons which held 
 out even to the less perfect among us the hope of the indulgent 
 applause of like minded readers. 
 
 But it is not in order to secure to themselves one who is a patron 
 genius of our literature that the writers of our periodical choose to 
 adorn their first page with his name. Nor in'ieed would it have 
 stood in need of any such outward adornment. They wished, 
 upon so favourable an opportunity, to express to the youth of our 
 Fatherland who are capable of culture, with how much deep feeling 
 that man is to be honoured, who has answered the question, turned 
 about in many ways, as to what is the aim to which the study of 
 antiquity tends, in a manner more beautiful and more satisfying 
 than the best inquiry could have done. 
 
 For from whence can such a power of rising above the narrow circle 
 and troubled sphere of our ordinary everyday life, from whence can 
 such views of the world and of art and science be gained, as from the 
 innermost sanctuary of the antique worship of the Arts of the 
 Muses, which here again once more has revealed itself to a spirit that 
 
APPENDIX. 119 
 
 has a natural kinship with them ? To know more intimately, and to 
 learn to enter into the ofttimes not obvious meaning of a high priest 
 of this shrine, who has not only expounded the responses and ideas 
 of the oracles which have now ceased to divine, but has himself 
 delivered much which is worthy of interpretation — this of itself would 
 well repay the task of drawing from the original and everlasting springs 
 of beauty. 
 
 May your word, and the esteem in which you the most worthy of) 
 our noble men are held, help us henceforth mightily to protect our 
 Fatherland, lest the Palladium of these sciences be torn from it by 
 sacrilegious hands, since we assuredly cherish a well-grounded hope 
 that in it we are guarding an imperishable inheritance for posterity. 
 Whatever may be the cause of it — whatever it be in the nature of our 
 language, or in the kinship of our parent stem with the Greek, or where- 
 ever else the reason is to be sought, we Germans, after so many distor- 
 tions, join most readily of all the moderns in the concert of Grecian song 
 and eloquence. We least of all are repelled by the strangeness with 
 which those heroes cause others who would approach them to stumble. 
 We alone more and more reject the thought of adorning the simple 
 beauty of their works, and controlling their noted departures from our 
 standard of propriety. Whoever has already at home felt so deeply 
 the truth of their divine inspiration, will from the first feel no difficulty 
 in the earnest resolve to enter into the full range of the worship of the 
 inspiring gods. 
 
 But let us guard with equal care lest the motley vulgar crew, without 
 preparation and without reverence, force their way into these mysteries, 
 to revel at will with the thyrsus of inspiration. We gladly welcome 
 many a man who seeks in our circles for cheer and refreshment after 
 the severity of sterner studies, or the dryness of those pursued simply 
 for gain : just as we do such as announce themselves as zealous lovers 
 of all that is beautiful : notwithstanding that many who are really akin 
 to us fail to compass just the very highest point of science from the 
 most fruitfal points of view, but content themselves as diligent toilers 
 with one or another part (of it), ever labouring under the delusion that 
 they really love what they only ply as daily task work ; provided that 
 each of them all ennobles his toil, or even his play, by ingenious treat- 
 ment and aiming at what are recognised as the best ends. 
 
 Such let the German become, such let the German continue, without 
 despising the diligence of the learned accumulator, without repelling 
 the mere votary of general culture — let him be ever the deeper inquirer 
 and expounder of all that flows from antiquity which is great and 
 
liO APPENDIX. 
 
 beautiful ; and let him use such treasures amid the changes and chances 
 of public fortunes to fructify the spirit of his nation whose better sons 
 are, thanks to the study of their own native literary works, far from 
 unprepared to receive the higher consecration. 
 
 May you, who know and exemplify the Grecian spirit, long continue 
 an active protector and glad spectator of such profitable attempts ! 
 May your beloved Weimar under its noble princely house, which all 
 the Muses join to celebrate, soon afresh, shining in the renewal of its 
 prime, call out once and again fair new talents for the rest of Germany ! 
 May you never want for strength and unbroken leisure to pursue, in the 
 fashion in which your very manner of life follows the footsteps of 
 the Greeks, now this now that of the sweetest arts, and soon to 
 enlighten also the dark chambers of science which are too often 
 profaned. 
 
NOTE TO 
 
 3.— GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 By Dr. A. W. WARD. (Page 48.) 
 
 Since this paper went to press, the new volume of the parent 
 Groethe Society's Publications (Erich Schmidt and B. Suphan's 
 model edition of the Xenien from the MSS. in the Goethe and 
 Schiller Archives) reminds me of Groethe's admirable epigram — 
 for it must be his — on Biirgers death. The gentle irony of this 
 distich (No. 384 of the series) is quite in keeping with the great 
 man's later feelings — which it is unnecessary to analyse — towards 
 his old fellow-genius run to seed. " We should ever deal as 
 kindly as possible with the dead I And so may Minos too prove 
 tender to thee, dear Biirger, even as thou wert tender to thyself! " 
 Another Xenion (No. 488 in the collection), known to be by 
 Schiller, parodies Odysseus' words to the shade of Ajax, the son 
 of Telamon, Hom. Od., xi, 553-4, in allusion to the unextinguish- 
 able wrath provoked in Biirger by the critical review of his 
 poems contributed by Schiller in January, 1791, to the Allge- 
 meine Litter aturzeitwng. In their commentary on these latter 
 lines the editors note that in this rather protracted controversy 
 Goethe took Schiller's side. 
 
 ■^^-Mi^^C^S^KS."-^ 
 
II.-ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS BEAD BEFORE THE MANCHESTER 
 .GOETHE SOCIETY, 18SG-I8d3. 
 
 I.— OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 By the President, Dr. A. W. Ward, at the Opening Meeting, 
 23rd October, 1886. 
 
 After dwelling upon the fortunes of some of Goethe's early writings and 
 the progress of the study of his works in England, the President pro- 
 ceeded to illustrate the uses of a Manchester Goethe Society by consider- 
 ing the advantages for a study of Faust of the joint work of Goethe 
 students in England. The student of Faust, he said, has been caught 
 in the toils of a pursuit which is, humanly speaking, endless, for the 
 theme of the poem and the history of that theme open a vista into a 
 nebulous past. The Magician who derives superhuman knowledge and 
 power from the Spirit of Evil had been for centuries a familiar concep- 
 tion. At the threshold of the Christian Age stands the strange figure 
 of Simon Magus, whose overthrow by St. Peter was counted a signal 
 victory of the Church. Gradually the conception of the Magician de- 
 velcpes into that of man entering into a contract with the devil and into 
 the further notioa of a conflict between the powers of good and evil for 
 the soul of the contractor. This central idea pervades the mediaeval 
 legends of which the story of Faustus is the type. When the belief in 
 the miraculous powers of the Church became fainter, while the belief 
 in the palpable power of the devil continued, there seemed no escape 
 from punishment for the sinner who had sold his soul to the prince of 
 darkness. 
 
 Turning to the growth of the particular legend of Dr. Faustus, the 
 lecturer briefly sketched the history of the name Faustus, which was 
 given to his son by the Roman Sulla, himself a believer in magic. 
 It was borne by a Christian convert saved from the toils of Simon 
 Magus, by a Manichaoan bishop who dabbled in astrology, by an Italian 
 scholar who wrote on the Arabian Gebir, by another who led a life of 
 pleasure in Paris. The actual original or originals of the hero of the 
 storybook and of Goethe's drama were conjurors, but had nothing to do 
 
124 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 with the printer Fust, except that the latter's art spread the knowledge 
 of their doings. 
 
 With the Faustbuch begins the literary history of Dr. Faustus. Soon 
 atter its publication appeared Marlowe's play, which idealised the char- 
 acter of Faustus and protected it for ever from degradation. 
 
 Goethe really made the subject his own more than that of any of his 
 other works. He carried it about with him for sixty out of the eighty 
 years of his life. In 1774 one of his friends reports that Faust is 
 neai'ly finished, yet even the first fragment of the first part was not 
 published till 1790. Goethe had chosen the dramatic form for Faust 
 because it was the form in which the legend had struck his imagitjation, 
 and because it was a fitting mould to receive the thoughts and emotions 
 of his early years, but he had not thought of giving it dramatic unity. 
 The Prolor/iie m Heaven had then been neither written nor thought of. 
 and Faiistu at the end left in the hands of Mephistopheles. To under- 
 stand this early version of Faust, it is necessary to understand the 
 poet who wrote it, as he appears in his other poetic productions 
 of the period. To understand the Gretchen story, we must remember 
 that it is the old and cruel story of desertion which forms a " motive " in 
 all Goethe's early dramas, and which to him was the story of Friderike 
 Brion. To understand the Frdgeist and Mejjhistopheles we must recall 
 Goethe's relations to Merck and Herder, &c. In the second version of 
 Faust, diiferent analogies and new influences present themselves. 
 The Goethe who wrote it had made his Italian journey and was the 
 friend of Schiller and the recipient of his fellow-poet's ideas. And so 
 again, with the third and last Faiist, which belongs to Goethe's age and 
 attests the symbolising tendencies which Goethe had largely taken 
 from the East. Another interesting study would be to trace the aid 
 which the poem has derived from the sister-arts of music and painting, 
 and from the interpretation of actors ; for Faust is, at least in its first 
 part, a play which will be always seen with interest, though never with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 After suggesting these as some of the points to which the Manchester 
 Goethe Society might profitably devote its attention, the lecturer con- 
 cluded by showing why such a society should be contented to occupy 
 itself with Goethe alone. Goethe, he said, may be studied without 
 fear of flagging interest; for nowhere has the world seen such an 
 intellectual receptivity and such an intellectual self-control, and it is but 
 seldom that a combination of creative genius of the highest order with 
 a daemonic personal attractiveness such as his is to be met with either 
 in experience or in the traditions of history. 
 
GOETHE AND CALDERON. 125 
 
 II.— GOETHE AND CALDERON. 
 
 By Dr. C. H. Heeford. 
 
 Paper read 24:th November, 1886. 
 
 Goethe has recorded, in the Conversations with Eckermann, his 
 opinion that Calderon, for whom during the last 30 years of his life 
 he continued to express unbounded admiration, had not influenced his 
 poetry. • Unquestionably his admiration brought with it no powerful 
 productive impulse such as he had owed to Shakespeare. It is only 
 in fragments and at moments that he betrays Calderon's influence ; 
 but the very unlikeness of mind which kept Goethe in the main aloof 
 gives to these a peculiar interest. 
 
 I. — Goethe was attracted by the immense variety and richness of 
 the Spanish metres. On his first introduction to Calderon by Schlegel 
 we find him singling out this feature. In 1802, he accepted F. 
 Schlegel's weak play in the Spanish style, Alarcos, in spite of Schiller's 
 protest, as " enabling these elaborate metres to be spoken and heard." 
 Goethe himself nowhere follows Schlegel in this wholesale imitation. 
 But there occur in his writings between 1798 and 1812 scattered 
 passages in which the rapid dancing melody of Calderon's apostrophes 
 and their picturesque accumulation of parallel clauses are distinctly 
 recalled. 
 
 II. — Calderon was to Goethe the typical poet of Catholic, or in 
 the narrower sense Christian, art. Lessing had expressed the view 
 that the character of the true Christian was incompatible in its imper- 
 turbable mildness with tragedy. To this view, which the young 
 Goethe probably shared, his reading of Calderon's Principe Constanta 
 in 1807 gave a decisive shock. On the strength of this play, chiefly, 
 he placed Calderon on a level with Shakespeare, " or higher if that 
 were possible." In the profound impression produced by it has been 
 sought the source of his " Fragments of a Tragedy," in which reminis- 
 cences are traceable of two distinct types of dramatic action — the 
 romance of chivalry (as the Puente de Mmitihle), and the martyr 
 legend. 
 
 III. — A further and profounder attraction lay in Calderon's Fest- 
 spiele. There was a certain analogy between his use of destiny and 
 that mysterious half-irrational energy in human afi'airs which Goethe 
 called das Daemonische, and the recognition of which was one 
 source of the symbolism of his later art. The symbol could suggest 
 what was beyond definite expression. It is this symbolism which 
 
126 ABSTRACTS OF TAPERS. 
 
 gives their profundity to the Festspiele, whicli belong precisely 
 to the period in which Calderon's influence was predomiuant with 
 him. Calderon's o^Yn Festspiele are hardly equalled in wealth 
 of imaginative colouring. The Greek myth passes into a higher 
 heaven of invention in his pages. Among others the myth of 
 Prometheus and Pandora figures {La estatua de Prometeo), and it 
 was surely not without study here that Goethe produced in 1807 his 
 own splendid fragment Pandora. Like Calderon, he has developed out 
 of the antagonism of two psychologically contrasted figures — 
 Prometheus and Epimetheus, a drama of epic breadth and pro- 
 fusion. The introduction of the rustics, of Discord, of the Sungod, are 
 points of agreement which by no means followed from a natural work- 
 ing out of the original legend. It is significant, however, of the difter- 
 ent points of approach of the two poets, that with Calderon it is 
 Prometheus, with Goethe Epimetheus, who typifies art and civilization. 
 Goethe becomes in some sort the champion of the latter, as the medita- 
 tive man, against his brother Prometheus the energetic but narrow man 
 of action, whose Beluujen is Parteilichkeit and his irahre Feier, die That. 
 But Epimetheus is acquainted with those " festivals of thought " which, 
 in minds of Goethe's temper, have more to do than experiment or 
 practice with achievement in science and in art. As Calderon himself 
 belonged, by a certain externality^ to the Promethean school, so Goethe's 
 method was the Sinnen, the stiiie Enticickelumj aus dem Innern, which 
 he justly denied to Schiller. 
 
 III.— GOETHE AND HOMER. 
 By De. Herman Hager. 
 Paper read 24th November, 1886. 
 The lecturer followed out the phases of an influence which the experi- 
 ences of a long life only enforced, from the time when the boy Goethe 
 discovered a prose translation of the Iliad in his uncle's library, to 
 the days of his calm old age, when themes from Homer constantly 
 recur as the subject of his talks with Eekermann. At Leipzig the 
 ancients, as he confesses, were still to him hke distant blue mountains, 
 clear enough in their outline and mass, but unrecognisable in their 
 parts ; but at Strassburg and Sesenheim we find him occupied with 
 a zealous study of Homer, which was one of the happiest fruits of 
 the sarcasms of Herder. In 1772, he hailed with enthusiasm Wood's 
 once famous essay on the original genius of Homer, and contributed an 
 admirably penetrative description of the Homer bust to Lavater's 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF "FAUST." 127 
 
 PJujHiognomik. The young Werther seeks consolation amid his trial;? 
 in the story of Odysseus and Eumaeus. It is only when his mind 
 begins to yield to the morbid thought of suicide that he exchanges the 
 sanest of great poets for Ossian. On a country excursion in 1776, 
 Goethe finds it impossible "in this simple Homeric world," to do with- 
 out an Odyssey. But it was the Italian journey which first led him to 
 the true understanding of Homer. A veil, as he wrote to Herder, fell 
 from his eyes ; and he discovered the characteristic distinction of 
 ancient and modern art : *' They describe things as they are, we — as 
 they afifect us." It was in Sicily that the long-loved Odyssey first 
 became to him a " living word" ; and in the gardens of Palermo, 
 with the smell of the sea in his nostrils and the roll of its 
 dark surges in his ear, he planned his own exquisite picture of " the 
 blessed Phaeacians," the Nausicaa. In 1791 began the intercourse 
 with Voss, whose translation Goethe warmly championed from the 
 first ; but in the fallowing year Wolf's Prolegomena introduced a 
 disturbing element into his Homeric enthusiasm to which he was never 
 finally reconciled, and which he never finally put aside : now clinging 
 with only less assurance than Schiller to the traditional view, now 
 finding a compensation for its loss in the release thus afi'orded from the 
 overawing grandeur of the undivided Homer — " Denn wer wagte mit 
 Gottern den Kampf, und wer mit dem einen ? Doch Homeride zu sein, 
 auch nur als letzter, ist schon." Goethe's work as " last Homeride " 
 comprises two poems, constructed on entirely different principles ; 
 the Hermann und Dorothea, modern ia subject, and free from 
 classical machinery, yet breathing in every line the very spirit of 
 Homer, and the fragmentary Achilleis, a virtuoso and only partially 
 successful attempt to follow Homer on his own ground. There ended 
 his Homeric imitations. Henceforth he was content to go to Homer 
 simply for refreshment and unfailing delight. With Homer none might 
 compare, not Firdusi, not even the poet of " our own glorious 
 Nibeluugen"; only his fellow-Greek, Phidias, might be mentioned in the 
 same breath as having attained a supremacy in art unassailable as his. 
 
 IV.— THE FIVE BEST ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF 
 "FAUST." 
 
 By R. McLiNTocK. 
 
 Paper read 19t/i Januarij, 1887. 
 By the five best English translations of Faust the lecturer meant those 
 of Anster, Professor Blackie, Sir Theodore Martin, Miss Swanwick, 
 
128 ABSTRACTS OF TAPERS. 
 
 and Mr. Bayard Taylor. Of these live Prof. Blackie alone ignored 
 the essential importance of the second part, which he contrasted 
 disparagingly as " arabesque painting " with the great human tragedy 
 of the first part. The ideal translation of Faust ^ it was insisted, 
 must perfectly reproduce it in form as well as in meaning. Judged by 
 this test Anster altogether broke down, for he exceeded the original 
 in length by about one-seventh. In other respects he was excellent, 
 except in lyrical passages. Blackie and Martin were similarly about 
 seven and twelve per cent, in excess. The exuberant verbosity of the 
 former, and the intervals of flatness which in the latter intervene 
 between passages of hardly surpassable eJBfect, forbade their versions 
 being considered final. Martin's defects in detail were principally his 
 frequent use of the wrong word, and his artificial and sometimes 
 ambiguous inversions. Miss Swanwick neither rose so high nor 
 descended so low as Martin, and her version, slightly old-fashioned in 
 manner as it was, was better suited to " unpoetical readers." Finally, 
 Taylor's version was severely handled. His English was inferior to 
 Miss Swanwick's, and he had retained less than his four rivals of the 
 poetry of the original. Nor had he invariably observed the canon of 
 absolute metrical fidelity, which he alone of the five proclaimed ; e.g., in 
 the Women's Easter Chorus. The Soldier's Chorus was instanced as, 
 like the Archangel's song, a failure in the hands of every translator. 
 
 v.— ^'WILHELM MEISTER" AND THE ROMANTIC 
 NOVELISTS, 
 
 By Mrs. Sidgwick. 
 
 Papet' read 23rd Febricari/, 1887. 
 
 The lecturer sketched by way of introduction the state of German society 
 at the publication of Wilhelm Meuter, the anti-Goethe agitation of the Ber- 
 lin Rationalists, the Xenienkampf, and the debut of the brothers Schlegel 
 as the active assailants of AufkUirwKj and the exponents of a new ideal 
 both in literature and in life. As the embodiment of this ideal, F. 
 Schlegel, in the second number of his brother's journal, the Athenaeum, 
 hailed Wilhelm Meister. "It is all poetry, pure, high poetry," he 
 wrote ; and the attempt to justify this view led him to propound more 
 than one cardinal principle of romantic aesthetics. That it was written 
 in prose was the best illustration of the doctrine that verse was not 
 essential to poetry ; and the finely felt criticism of "Hamlet" in the 
 fifth book led him to the assertion that criticism was a form of poetry. 
 
GOETHE AS BOTANIST. J29 
 
 Meister was not only the first of romances, but "romance" was itself 
 the most perfect of literary modes ; nor was it without significance that 
 Schlegel and his followers were called, and called themselves, the 
 " Romantic " school. But it was hardly less important in relation to 
 their " criticism of life " than to their criticism of literature. It was 
 for them the romance of the poetic or art-life ; the embodiment of tho 
 world of their dreams, in which beauty and emotion held supreme 
 sway ; where the sordid struggles and vulgar triumphs of every- 
 day humanity had no place ; and where artists were the only 
 persons, art the only occupation of any account. The very defects 
 of the hero, his want of robust fibre, the feminine susceptibility 
 which permits every new acquaintance to have a hand in his 
 education, touched a sympathetic chord. They were the defects of the 
 artist-temperament. They accorded with the disposition to exalt 
 inspiration and impulse at the expense of hard work. From this 
 standpoint, with the aid of a singularly misunderstood Fichteism, the 
 step was easy to that disdain of ordinary morality from the vantage 
 ground of irresponsible genius, which produced the so-called ** irony " 
 of the Romantics. This irony inspired Tieck's William Lovell, and 
 still more Schlegel' s Luclnde — unreal pictures of hypochondriac crime 
 and sentimental vice. Still more directly the fruit of Meister was 
 Tieck's Stenibalds Wanderungen, the shadowy story of a premature 
 romantic artist of the sixteenth century. Novalis, again, attracted by 
 the mystic symbolism which lurks in the apparently prosaic atmosphere 
 of Meister, produced his Heinrich von Ofterdingen, where symbolism is 
 carried out without disguise in the congenial world of a fantastic 
 mediaevalism. Thus, for the Romantic school, the publication of 
 Wilhelm Meister was really what F. Schlegel said it was to the world 
 at large — one of the three most momentous events (the other two being 
 the appearance of Fichte's Wissenschqftslehre and the French Revolu- 
 tion) of the eighteenth century. And if they discredited their master 
 alike as artists and as moralists, they at least powerfully advanced the 
 sympathetic appreciation of his work. 
 
 VI.— GOETHE AS BOTANIST. 
 By Professor Williamson. 
 Pa2Jer read 30ih March, 1887. 
 
 Most people are aware that Goethe was an acccmpHshed man of science 
 as well as a distinguished poet, but few are familiar with what he 
 
 E 
 
130 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 did as a scientific investigator. His greatest success was achieved in 
 the department of Botany, and this at a period when less attention was 
 paid to the evolution of objects and their component organs than is now 
 given to such studies. But Goethe's mind was essentially a philosophic 
 one, and much of his attention was given to researches into the more 
 hidden nature of things that underlies their superficial appearances. 
 Goethe was not only an enthusiastic lover of flowers, but a practical 
 florist ; and spending much of his life in his garden, we need not wonder 
 that many questions in connexion with his plants pressed themselves 
 upon his attention. Amongst others the nature of the flower, in its 
 relations to the rest of the plant upon which it was developed, sug- 
 gested itself to him as a subject for investigation, and he proved him- 
 self equal to the task of working out the needed solution. 
 
 A plant consists of the vegetative organs and its reproductive ones. 
 The former are the roots, stems, branches and leaves. The latter are 
 the flowers, which ultimately develop into the fruits, and their seeds 
 or seed-like bodies. A stem is more or less jointed, consisting of 
 nodes, points from which leaves and buds spring, and smooth intervals 
 from which no such organs are developed. Though apparently 
 irregular, ther^e nodes are geometric in the real regularity of their 
 distribution. In some cases they are arranged in circles round the 
 stem, smooth interval or internode separating each circle from others 
 above and and below it. Where this arrangement of the nodes exists 
 the leaves are developed in whorls, one whorl from each of these nodal 
 circles. But whilst plants with whorled leaves are comparatively few 
 in number, the parts of a true flower are almost always arranged in 
 whorls. The lowest of these, being outermost in the flower-bud, is 
 known as the Calyx, which is most frequently green and composed of a 
 whorl of sepals. Within and above this is the Corolla or verticil of 
 Petals — most commonly the coloured and scented part of the flower. 
 Above and within this again is the ring or rings of the stamens, or male 
 organs, and in the centre of these, occupying the apex of the stem, we 
 have the ovary or female structure which develops into the future fruit. 
 The question of which Goethe sought the solution was the relationships 
 which these four sets of floral reproductive organs bore to the lower 
 or vegetative organs of the plant. Were the former a series of inde- 
 pendent structures, as difi'erent in their origin as in their functions 
 from the latter — or were these floral organs mere modified forms of, 
 and developments from, the vegetative stems and leaves ? 
 
 In seeking the answers to these queries Goethe did not, like the 
 older schoolmen, seek merely to evolve them out of his inner con- 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 131 
 
 sciousness, but proceeded upon the true Baconian plan of experimental 
 observations. He watched and studied the growth and development of 
 the plants which he raised from seeds. He observed that the upper 
 part of the stem about to develop into the flower consisted, like the 
 lower vegetative structures, of alternations of nodes and internodes. 
 He saw that just as the leaves of the lower parts sprang from nodes, 
 the organs destined to constitute the flower did the same ; and after a 
 prolonged series of these practical researches he arrived at the con- 
 clusion that these component parts of the flower were merely clusters 
 of leaves, but modified from the very commencement of their develop- 
 ment, and so adapted for the several special functions they were destined 
 to perform. 
 
 We now know that all this is absolutely true. But the poet ha^ 
 the greatest difficulty in convincing the Botanists of his time that such 
 was the case. They would not believe that a poet could have made a 
 discovery of which no suspicion had been entertained by any of them- 
 selves. The controversies on the subject were innumerable and pro- 
 longed, but the victory ultimately remained with Goethe. 
 
 But another question was now raised. Goethe's philosophic conclu- 
 sions were certainly correct, but was he the real discoverer of the truth ? 
 It is certain that a young student, Kaspar Friedrich Wolfi", a native of 
 Berlin, pursued a series of important researches into the life-history of 
 plants which, though by a somewhat diS'erent route, brought him to 
 precisely the same conclusions as those at which Goethe had arrived. 
 The question is, did Goethe receive his idea of metamorphosis from 
 Wolflf before he began his systematic investigations on the subject or, 
 as is often the case in such matters, had the idea suggested itself inde- 
 pendently to each of these men, and been worked out separately along 
 lines which, though distinct, brought them by equally logical methods 
 to the same conclusions ? I think it can scarcely be doubted that the 
 latter was the case. I cannot but conclude that, whilst Wolfi" and 
 Goethe are equally entitled to the merit of the discovery, each, as in the 
 case of Adams and Leverrier, made it independently of the other. 
 
 Vn.— THE FRffiNDSHIP OF GOETHE AND SCHILLEK. 
 
 By PiioF. E. DowDEN. 
 
 Pajjer read 26th April, 1887. 
 
 [Reprinted in the Fortnightly Beoieiu, August, 1891.] 
 
132 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 VIII.— "FAUST" AND "WILHELM MEISTER" CONSIDERED 
 AS WORKS TYPICAL OF GOETHE'S DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 By Mr. H. Preisinger. 
 
 Paper read 25th May, 1887. 
 
 Faust and Willielm Meister are conspicuous even among writings 
 so characteristically spontaneous as Goethe's for the directness with 
 which they reflect his mind. Both were begun early, fixed in their 
 main outlines during his ripe manhood, and completed, if completed 
 they were, in his closing years. Each, moreover, in a measure 
 supplements the other, the composition of Meister falling chiefly in 
 periods during which he did little or no work at Faust. Both 
 present a history in little of Goethe's development — in style, in cast 
 of imagination, in philosophic conviction. The great turning-points 
 of his career — the Strassburg residence, the settlement at Weimar,, 
 the Italian journey, the death of Schiller — also make epochs in the 
 growth of these typical works. In the " Fragment " of Faust 
 {i.e., speaking generally, the Gretchen scenes) is reflected the period of 
 storm and stress which in Goethe's life divides Weimar from Strassburg,. 
 with its dramatic impetuosity of style, its anti- scholastic philosophy, its 
 characteristic episodes of love (Friederike) and friendship (Herder and 
 Merck). Then came the ten years of the first Weimar period, in 
 which the old stormy energy was tempered by the serious cares of 
 oflSce and spiritualised by the gracious influence of Frau von Stein. 
 To these years belong in substance the first four books of the Lehrjahrey 
 though the Marianne episode may possibly date from Frankfurt, and 
 in more than one passage retains traces of the Werther style. In 
 general, the style has completely changed character. The short 
 periods, the direct and impulsive phrase, have given way to 
 self-contained and measured description. It is Goethe's Weimar 
 life, too, that is reflected in the scenery, personages, and incidents 
 of this part of Meister. The classical period which followed the 
 Italian journey saw decisive additions to both works. To it belongs 
 the prologue of Faust, with its glorious optimism, the greater part of 
 the contract-scene, with its foreshadowing of an ultimate redemption ; 
 and, finally, the Helena fragment, where Faust, like Goethe himself, is 
 purified by the revelation of classic beauty. The idea of the saving 
 grace of aspiration which is embodied in these scenes likewise domi- 
 nates the latter part of the Lehrjahre. Wilhelm's occupation with the 
 stage abruptly closes, and is represented as but a phase in a career 
 
GOETHE'S "WERTHER." 130 
 
 henceforward bent upon a higher end — the harmonioas self-develop- 
 ment which, in their various ways, is fostered by his new associates. 
 With the death of Schiller began a new phase by which, once more, 
 both works are coloured. The battle of Jena administered a rude 
 shock to the idea of harmonious culture as the last word of practical 
 l^hilosophy. Physical suffering was added, in Goethe's case, to the 
 pang of an irremediable loss, and the influence of both is not unnatur- 
 ally detected in Faust's bitter lament at the eternal necessity of renun- 
 ciation. This necessity had, however, its inspiring aspect. As the 
 •condition of self-discipline, renunciation was, he now came to perceive, 
 an element in all ideal life. Free self-development needed, in fact, to 
 be carried on to the higher stage of wise self-control. On this idea 
 was founded the Wanderjalire, with its outgrowth the Wahlverwandt- 
 ^chaften. The former, somewhat shapeless as it is, shows, by its rich 
 store of social and economic suggestions, how far the Goethe of 1827 
 had travelled from the ideal of merely aesthetic culture ; and its charac- 
 teristic ideas recur, in a more symbolic and imaginative form, in the 
 second part of Faust. Alike in the calm prose of the one and in the 
 rapturous mysticism of the other, we read, as the highest wisdom of the 
 wisest man of our century, that the ideal of humanity is neither the 
 Titanic striving which he had preached in his youth, nor the harmoni- 
 ous culture which had commended itself to his maturity, but the blend- 
 ing of unselfish activity with unselfish affection, of the law of duty with 
 the law of love. 
 
 IX.— GOETHE'S *' WERTHER." 
 
 By the Rev. Ph. Quenzer. 
 
 Paper read 15th Jane^ 1887. 
 
 Afier shortly describing the narrative and the incidents on which it 
 was founded, the lecturer discussed the more important criticisms which 
 had been passed upon it. (1) The "efi'eminate sensibility" so often 
 charged against it was but the reflection of the normal temperament of 
 his generation. (2) The use of a " double motive " — mortified pride as 
 well as disappointed love — to which Napoleon took exception at the 
 Weimar interview, was due to Goethe's combination, in the character 
 of Werther, of experiences from the life of young Jerusalem with his 
 own ; but was in itself quite accordant with the normal complexity of 
 human action. (3) The most serious objection was the allegation that 
 the denoument of Werther involved a defence of suicide ; an objection 
 
134 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 confiimed in some degree by the epidemic of suicide which sprend 
 through Germany immediately after its publication, and occasioned its 
 prohibition in Leipzig and elsewhere. Contemporary criticism for the 
 most part took this view. If Wieland, in spite of Goethe's recent 
 satirical attack, generously pointed to the distinction between a 
 description of suicide alid a defence of it, Goethe's own friend Merck, 
 on the other hand, did not conceal his disapproval, and both Nicolai 
 and Lessing made this feature a chief point in their memorable 
 criticisms. All such objections, however, appeared to prove too 
 much, since they would apply to all representations of moral obliquity,, 
 and render illegitimate the tragic drama itself. The subsequent 
 literary influence of Werther was extraordinarily great. Translations, 
 continuations, revised versions, songs, poems, romances, dramas, 
 bourgeois tragedies, farces, pantomimes, dealing with all possible and 
 impossible sorrows and joys of Werther and of Lotte, were the order of 
 the day ; and it was no mere phrase when Goethe, in the Venetian 
 Epigrams, described how the very Chinese " painted with curious 
 hand Werther and Lotte on glass." In regard, finally, to its Hterary 
 character, Werther can, doubtless, not claim the ripeness and clearness 
 of intellectual outlook which mark Goethe's later works. But, on the 
 other hand it stands in this respect far above the current productions 
 of the Sturm und Drang ; while in artistic unity of plan it is surpassed 
 by nothing that Goethe has written. 
 
 X.~A. F. FREIHERR v. LOEN. 
 
 By Mr. Georg Schelling. 
 
 Commemorative Address given 22nd October, 1887. 
 
 August Feiedrich Feeiherr von Loen was born 1828 in Dessau, where 
 his family, which sprang from a Franco-Rhenish stock, settled during 
 the last century, and where his father died as Ober-Hofmarschall. His 
 relationship to the families of Goethe and Humboldt, no less than the 
 literary and artistic traditions of Anhalt, had their part in shaping 
 the course of Loen's intellectual development. Dessau, which under 
 the tolerant sway of the Princes Leopold and Friedrich Franz of Anhalt 
 had protected and emancipated Lutherans and Jews, which had pro- 
 duced men like the architect von Erdmaunsdorf, the precursor of 
 Schinkel, had for some time given a special attention to the culture of 
 music and the theatre. After finishing his studies at the Berlin 
 University Loen entered the army and took part as officer in the Danish 
 
A. F. FKEIHERR V. LOEN. . 135 
 
 Campaigns of 1849 and 1869. The lecturer testified to the strict sense 
 of miHtary duty which characterised Loen equally with the greatest 
 gentleness and justice in his behaviour towards his inferiors. As a 
 fruit of his military studies he published in 1860 his book on the 
 military constitution of the German Empire and the German Union from 
 1660-1860, while his intimate knowledge of the stage and its artists 
 is reflected in his novel Duhne and Lehen, and his literary tendencies 
 in his contributions to several literary periodicals. The lecturer 
 mentioned, from his personal experience, the eagerness w^ith which Loen 
 in the beginning of the sixties entered upon the study of the English 
 language and literature, and his interest in Shakespeare, which soon led 
 him to the presidency of the German Shakespeare Society. Having in 
 his position as personal adjutant of the Hereditary, and later on the 
 Reigning Prince, for years shared the interest taken by the Court in 
 the management of the theatre, Loen was not unnaturallj' singled out 
 as the successor of Dingelstedt, on the latter's retirement, as Intendant 
 of the Weimar Court Theatre. Dingelstedt had been a brilliant 
 manager of the theatre, where he had, e.g., introduced his arrangements 
 of the Wallenstein Trilogy and of Shakespeare's Historic Plays, but 
 he had given too much scope to the " star " system, and Loen's 
 first endeavours were directed towards removing the evils of this 
 system and bringing about a sounder, if less brilliant, condition of the 
 stage. One of his aims was the quiet but effective training of young 
 talents. "It is astonishing," says a competent judge, "how many 
 artists of both sexes first tried their powers under Loen's guidance, and 
 subsequently gained for themselves respected positions on the German 
 stage." 
 
 In the opera he introduced regular cyclic performances of Wagner's, 
 Mozart's, and Beethoven's works. He was, e.g., the first to perform 
 Wagner's Tristan and Isolde after the long interval following its 
 original performance at Munich. In the drama his most interesting 
 achievement is, perhaps, the performance, in 1876, of both parts of 
 Goethe's Faust, which was afterwards repeated at regular intervals. 
 But while paying so much attention to classical works of opei'a and 
 drama, he by no means neglected the rising generation, and the 
 encouragement of modern poets and composers was one of the prominent 
 features of bis management. Equally remarkable was his great 
 administrative talent, which enabled him to do the utmost with the 
 comparatively limited means at his disposal. After briefly glancing at 
 Loen's work as a member of the Schiller Foundation, the Shakespeare 
 Society and the Goethe Gesellschaft, Mr. Schelliug concluded by 
 
136 . ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 saying that the name of August v. Loen would remain indissolubly 
 connected with the history of the Goethe Gesellschaft as long as any 
 trace of its activity might survive. 
 
 XL— THE "ERDGEIST" IN THE '^ FAUST FRAGMENT." 
 
 Ey the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Palmer read ''Idrd Noveinher, 1887. 
 
 The Faust Fragment of 1790 is still embedded in the completed 
 work, the main additions to the earlier scenes being the prologues, 
 Faust's attempted suicide, Easter walk, and bargain with Mephis- 
 topheles. In it the Erdgeist takes a position like the ghost in 
 " Hamlet." Faust is not the deeply-disillusioned man of the later 
 additions, but a shy student, knowing neither the world of nature nor 
 man. He is a teacher, but is weary of words. He is a scholar, but 
 loathes the dry-as-dust toil. He might have taken to literary produc- 
 tion, but the old legend is followed, and he takes to magic. With its 
 aid he tries the world of gods — god-like men — but this Jacob's Ladder 
 world is an "Idol of the Theatre" (" ein Schauspiel nur "). He 
 tries to approach Nature as a superior being. Magic brings him the 
 apparition of the Erdgeist, with its revelation. The earth of the 
 Lisbon earthquake is no kindly mother ; man is no peer of her subtle 
 pervading forces. He cannot even conceive them. Ail his ideas are 
 anthropomorphic, and so his nature must be human nature, and his 
 spirit one like himself. Faust's advances thus repulsed by Nature, and 
 the bare idea of approaching her as ** servant and interpreter " being 
 precluded by magic, he resolves to be a colossal man, and finds himself 
 associated with Mephistopheles — a humorist, purveyor of pleasures, 
 and lord of witches. This gift, like the ring of Gyges, sweeps away at 
 a stroke most of the obstacles to the gratification of his wishes ; and, 
 with some natural misgivings, he starts with Mephistopheles "to see 
 the little world and then the great." So far the scenes date at latest 
 from 1774 ; and in 1789 Goethe probably added in Italy the scene 
 Wald und Hohle, which seems a poetical working up of an earlier 
 prose scene, of which we have remains in the scene Triiber Tag, added 
 in 1808. The Erdgeist Goethe seems to feel, though it cannot be got 
 rid of, must be made something more or something less. In this scene 
 he has tried the former course ; and Faust thanks the Erhabner Geist 
 for giving him his enjoyment of nature — a concession of which the 
 Erdgeist's apparition and revelation contain no trace, any more than of 
 
Goethe's theory of colour. 137 
 
 the assignment of Mephistopheles as companion, of which Faust in the 
 same breath complains. But Goethe found as he went on that the 
 Erdgeist, with all its red lire, brought neither " airs from heaven nor 
 blasts from hell ;" and, finally, he dwarfed it by the addition of the 
 Prologue in Heaven and the Wager, and changed it from a maker of a 
 revelation into a horrible apparition which frightens Faust into 
 attempting suicide.- The inconsistent language used about it testifies 
 to this change.'^' 
 
 XII.—aOETHE'S THEORY OF COLOUR. 
 
 By Dr. Arthur Schuster. 
 
 Paper read 2oth January, 1888. 
 
 The lecturer pointed out that there was nothing essentially antago- 
 nistic between poetry and science, and that, as a matter of fact, 
 Goethe possessed in a very high degree the power of observation, so 
 necessary to the scientific student, and also that of classification and 
 generalisation, which is so helpful to the satisfactory prosecution of 
 scientific inquiries, particularly in their preliminary stages. And it was 
 just in those branches of natural science which were in the preliminary 
 stage that Goethe was most successful. His theory of colour, however, 
 though worked out with marvellous patience and acuteness, is but the 
 last brilliant flicker of mediaeval science, which ignored the fact that 
 the physical world is ruled by definite numerical laws, and that a physi- 
 cal theory must be able to stand the test of mathematical demonstra- 
 tion. Goethe held that a close observation of what is going on around 
 us in nature will teach us far more than we can learn by experimenta- 
 tion ; and particularly did he abhor those experiments which render it 
 necessary for the observer to shut himself in a dark room and admit the 
 light only through a narrow aperture. He refused to break up Hght; 
 and took it as an ultimate thing in itself. The fundamental facts from 
 which he starts — the blue sky and the sunset colour — are just those 
 which, according to Newton's theory, are most compHcated and difficult 
 to explain ; and, moreover, whilst we have been driven by continued 
 experience to look on the human senses as the most fallible and decep- 
 tive of guides, Goethe takes man's judgment as the only possible test 
 
 * In October, 1815, Goethe told Sulpiz Boisseree that Bacon's little tractate de 
 Idolis had exercised aa influence upon the development of his philosophical ideas 
 second only to that of Spinoza. (Gesprdcke Vol. III. p. 250.) 
 
138 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 of colour sensatioD. Hence his theory, while argued out with perfect 
 logic on the grounds from which it started, fails to stand the ultimate 
 test of all physical truth — that of numbers. It does not allow us to get 
 numerical relations which we can verify or disprove by experiment. 
 The last part of Goethe's work on the Farbenlehre gives a historical 
 account of the progress of optics which, in the lecturer's view, is the 
 most complete and satisfactory history ever written in any department 
 of science, and which should be read by every student of physics. 
 
 XIIIa.— FRIEDRICH THEODOR v. VISCHER. 
 
 By Professor Lobenhoffer. 
 
 Paper read l%th February, 1888. 
 
 Professor Lobenhoffer introduced some notes taken of a lecture of 
 the late Professor Dr. Friedrich Theodor v. Vischer, being Critical 
 Remarks on the Prologue in Heaven from Goethe's Faust, by a short 
 sketch of Yischer's Hfe. Vischer was born on the 30th June, 1807, in 
 Ludwigsburg, a district town of Wurttemberg. After passing through 
 the Gymnasium at Stuttgart, he entered in 1821 the Blaubeuren 
 seminary, studied philosophy and theology in the Stift at Tubingen 
 (1825-29), and obtained in 1881 the post of a Repetent, in Maulbronn. 
 On his return from a scientific journey in 1832-33 he was maHe 
 Repetent in the Stift in Tubingen, but soon forsook theology for 
 literature and aesthetics, and became first Privatdocent, then extra- 
 ordinary (1837) and ordinary Professor (1844). The consequence of 
 his inaugural address as ordinary Professor was his suspension for 
 two years. The influence of Hegel's school upon him had been a 
 powerful one. His essay on " The Sublime and the Comical " had 
 already shown him to be a keen and brilliant antagonist, but by the 
 inaugural address he incurred the full anger of his opponents. It was 
 his pride to be a whole man and not half a one. All men were to 
 know his aims ; a passionate truthfulness was of the very essence of hi^ 
 being. The loftiness with which Vischer overlooked things, united as 
 it was with a rare power of sarcasm, was accounted by many as 
 temerity. He ever struck home without compunction when he 
 believed he was fighting badness, wrongness, or absurdity. His 
 severe judgment of the second part of Goethe's Faust is well known. 
 The real beginning of his great career was in 1846, when he wrote 
 his Aesthetlkj a gigantic work and a wonder of intellectual power and 
 scholarship, which he completed in 1858. In 1855 Vischer was 
 
CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 131> 
 
 called to Munich, but in 186G returned home, where he was to 
 lecture at the same time at the University of Tiibingen and the 
 Polytechnicum at Stuttgart. From 1870 onwards he confined 
 himself to Stuttgart, where until last summer (1887) he con- 
 tinued his brilliant lectures on Aesthetics, on German literature, 
 Shakespeare, and Goethe's Faust. He spent the summer vaca- 
 tion of 1887 iu Upper Bavaria, and then went to Gmunden, 
 where he died on the 14th September, after a short illness. 
 "In him," says Carl Emil Franzos in an address at Vischer's grave, 
 " we mourn an ornament of our profession, one of the noblest of the 
 authors of this century, a keen and powerful thinker, a poet of deep 
 feeling and splendid creative force, a journalist full of the courage of 
 liberty and of moral dignity. Because he was at the same time a poet 
 and a thinker, therefore was he able to perceive the beautiful so keenly, 
 and the laws which he has prescribed to artistic creation will be obeyed 
 so long as Germans follow the callings of poetry and of art." 
 
 XIIIb.— CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE PROLOGUE IN 
 HEAVEN. 
 
 By F. T. V. YiscHER. 
 
 From Notes read hj Prof. Lohenhoffer. 
 
 Goethe's Faust cannot terminate with the damnation of its hero. 
 This is sufficiently evident from the Prologue in Heaven. In this scene 
 the poet rises above his work, and gives utterance to its fundamental 
 idea. To this idea Goethe gives a poetic body, by the employment of 
 Christian mythology. The Archangels represent the eternal law of 
 things ; Mephistopheles, at the same time denouncer and tempter, 
 represents the moral world, while the Lord is the supreme unity govern- 
 ing both. The passage beginning, " Wenn er mir jetzt audi nur verworren 
 dient,'" contains both the fundamental idea and the final purpose of the 
 play. Here the great idea of development makes all human errors 
 seem like the phases of a continuous course. 
 
 By the Prologue, the poet has also prepared the solutioa of 
 the problem of his work. Like all true poetry, Faust contains 
 the sums of trains of thought, difficult to resolve, and sometimes 
 not fully expressed by the poet. Such a passage is the one 
 beginning "D« darfst audi da nur frei ersdieinen.'" Here the 
 word Sdialk is not sufficiently explained. The stimulating eftect of 
 the spirit of negative criticism upon man's nature does not exhaust its 
 
HO ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 beneficent influence ; equally important is its restraining power upon 
 idealism, so apt to overleap itself, and to attempt too much at once, 
 in either action or enjoyment. The limitation of the beneficent power 
 of evil to the former efi'ect might be justified by taking Faust as the 
 representative, not only of one-sided idealistic efi'ort, but of striving 
 humanity generally. In that case Mephistopheles cannot, however, be 
 taken as one of the forms of evil, but as evil itself. Another passage not 
 sufficiently clear in itself is the one beginning " Solarif/ er cmf der Krde 
 lebt," which, taken in its immediate sense, is confusing. If Faust's 
 fate in the moment of death is doubtful, the prospect of another life does 
 not mend matters, for either there is striving in that other life, and then 
 the action goes on indefinitely, or there is none, and then Faust's trans- 
 lation to Heaven cuts but does not solve the knot. 
 
 If Faust's fate in dying is not doubtful only two things can be sup- 
 posed. Either he dies in a state of complete apathy, of absence of 
 striving, and then his soul will go to hell, or he dies in a state of such 
 perfection that no relapse into guilt is to be feared. Neither case can 
 happen, for Faust, continuing to strive, cannot absolutely fall and can- 
 not escape guilt, and if he dies in a moment of complete though 
 prospective happiness, a dispute between the Lord and Mephistopheles 
 would be inevitable. These difficulties can be only solved by the poetic 
 fact of Faust's translation to Heaven, and this transcendental conclusion 
 is prepared by the transcendental scene of the Prologue. 
 
 XIV.— GOETHE'S '' IPHIGENIE." 
 
 By Dr. A. S. Wilkins. 
 
 Faper read 24th March, 1388. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 63.] 
 
 XV.— JOSEPH CHAELES HELLISH. 
 
 By Dr. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 Paper read 28th Ajtril, 1888. 
 
 Joseph Charles Mellish was one of the first of the small band of 
 Englishmen who towards the end of the eighteenth century took 
 an intelligent interest in German literature, and whose efforts to 
 interest their countrymen in it have hardly met with the recognition 
 
JOSEPH CHARLES HELLISH. 141 
 
 they deserve at the hands of historians of German literature. Mellish 
 was born in 1768. About the year 1795 he went to settle in Weimar, 
 married there, and built for himself a house on the esplanade, which 
 house Schiller bought from him in 1802. Schiller describes him as an 
 educated, learned Englishman, thoroughly familiar with ancient and 
 modern literature. Small wonder, then, that he was soon at home in 
 the literary circles of Weimar and Jena. In order to counterbalance 
 the success which translations of Kotzebue's plays had had on the 
 Enghsh stage, Mellish planned a translation of the WaUenstein 
 trilogy for Drury-lane Theatre, and wrote to Sheridan about it, but 
 Sheridan never replied. Schiller's MS., which he had sent to a 
 London bookseller, found its way later on into Coleridge's hands. Not 
 discouraged by this rebuff, Mellish made a second attempt with 
 " Maria Stuart." He translated each act as it was finished by Schiller, 
 and the English version appeared before its original. But it had no 
 success in London. The critics received it badly, its representation 
 on the English stage was out of the question, and Schiller renounced 
 for ever his cherished hopes of seeing his dramas acted simultaneously 
 in England and in Germany. In 1798 Mellish translated Goethe's 
 Hermann unci Dorothea, and in 1801 Palaeophron unci Xeoterpe^ 
 but it is doubtful whether these versions were ever printed. Soon 
 after, probably in 1802, Mellish left Weimar, and settled in Hamburgh 
 He died on September 18, 1823. — Dr. Meyer then read an interesting 
 passage from the AnnaJen, describing the visit of a son of Mellish in 
 1820. To this young man, his godchild, Goethe gave, in 1816 (when 
 father and son seem to have visited Goethe together — see Annalen)^ 
 a copy of Hermann und Dorothea which Dr. Meyer showed to the 
 meeting. In it is written boldly and clearly in Latin characters : 
 
 " Meinem theuren Pathen, 
 Eichard, Carl, Emil, 
 Wolfgang, Gottlob 
 V, Melliscb, 
 
 dem der Vater der beste 
 Dollmetsch des Gedichtes 
 seyn kann, 
 
 " Weimar, 
 
 d, 2 May " treumeinend 
 
 1816. Goethe." 
 
142 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 XVI.— ON THE '♦ URFAUST." 
 
 By Mr. H. Preisinger. 
 
 Paper read 23^A April, 1888. 
 
 After giving a brief account of the finding of this the most ancient 
 of all versions of Faust^ in a MS. of Frilul. v. Gochhausen, and a few 
 words on its importance as throwing light on the Goethe of the pre- 
 Weimar period, Mr. Preisinger went over this version scene by scene, 
 pointing out where it differed from the first part of Faust in its final 
 form, and drawing attention to the wonderful tact with which Goethe 
 in the revision pruned away everything trivial and of passing interest, 
 without touching anything really powerful and likely to live. Only 
 with regard to the closing prison scene is there room for doubt whether 
 the terse, intense prose of the first version, with its terrible pathos, may 
 not be more efiective than the softened and harmonised poetic form in 
 which Goethe recast it in 1798. The lecturer then touched on the 
 bearing of this discovery on the theories of Faust composition pro- 
 pounded by Profs. Scherer and Schroer. While feeling that, on the 
 w^hole, the chances are that there never were any other prose scenes 
 than those of the Gochhausen copy, Mr. Preisinger pointed out in 
 favour of Scherer' s theory of a prose Faust (1) that the language of 
 the prison scene seems to point to a comparatively early date of com- 
 position ; (2) that the Dom scene is of less decided rhythmical character 
 in the older form ; (8) that the example of the Auerbach's Keller scene 
 and its subsequent transformation into verse render it at least possible 
 that other scenes may also have existed in a similar immature form. 
 .Schroer's theory of another form for almost all the scenes of the present 
 first part receives but little support from the new discovery, which, on 
 the whole, invaluable as it is, propounds nearly as many riddles as it 
 solves. 
 
 XVII.— GOETHE AS A STUDENT OF CHEMISTRY. 
 
 By Dr. G. H. Bailey. 
 
 Paper read 5th March, 1890. 
 
 The lecturer pointed out how at a very early age Goethe's love for the 
 study of nature showed itself — in rather fantastic fashion as yet — 
 by the erection of an altar of natural products, the whole surmounted 
 •by sulphur, as a type of the unity of nature. His earliest serious 
 
GOETHE AS A STUDENT OF CHEMISTRY. 143 
 
 study of chemistry partook somewhat of the same mystical character. 
 After his return in ill-health from Leipzig in the autumn of 1768, he 
 and his friend, Fraulein von Klettenberg (in whom love for alchemy 
 wag an inherited taste), together made a regular study of such works 
 on alchemy as the Aurea Catena Hovieri, von Welling's Opus Mago- 
 Cabbalisticum, the writings of Paracelsus, Boerhaave, and others. The 
 lirst of these works (in no way connected with the Greek singer, 
 Homerus being here the cognomen given in the Rosenkreuzerbund to 
 its author, Anton Joseph Kirchweger) especially fascinated Goethe, and 
 exercised no inconsiderable influence on him through life, its funda- 
 mental principle, the essential continuity of nature, beiug one that 
 he ever sought to verify in all branches of natural science. 
 At this time, as later and in all his works, Goethe worked not merely 
 theoretically, but practically, getting together all the necessary 
 apparatus for an alchemist's laboratory. During his stay in Strasburg 
 his work in this direction was not entirely suspended, but was at any 
 rate kept secret from dread of Herder's sharp tongue; perhaps, too, it 
 was somewhat crowded out by the multitude of other interests. When 
 he went to Weimar, however, Goethe resumed it, turning his 
 knowledge of chemistry now to practical account for the study of 
 mineralogy, which his official duties made imperative on him, and which 
 he pursued in his own characteristic experimental fashion. Hence- 
 forward his interest in the subject never died out. We find him seeking 
 information from an intelligent apothecary, Buchholz ; and, in 1795, 
 at the age of forty-six, he went regularly, often through deep 
 snow, to Jena, to attend the chemistry lectures of GottHng, 
 whose appointment was due to him. With Guttling' s successor, 
 Dobereiner (the discoverer of the self-igniting lamp, known sa 
 Dobereiner's lamp), Goethe was in frequent correspondence. He has 
 constantly some question to propound to him, and is evidently quite au 
 fait with Doberein3r's practical experiments. For instance, he is much 
 interested in Dobereiner's idea of adding manganese oxide and powdered 
 glass to iron to produce steel ; and the commercial spirit, as he tays, 
 coming over him, he urges Dobereiner to keep the matter secret. 
 Again, we find him supplying Dobereiner with 100 thalers to enable 
 him to experiment on a cheaper and simpler gas than the coal gas as 
 prepared in England, which he thinks might be got from carbon and 
 water at a high temperature. Here, apparently, said the lecturer, we 
 have the introduction of a line of industry which is only to-day 
 begianing to bear fruit — viz., that of preparing a cheap gaseous fuel. 
 It is to Goethe's influence, too, that Jena owes its chemical laboratory, 
 
144 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 opened in 1820. So much for Goethe's practical work as a chemist. 
 For the right understanding of much of his literary work, how- 
 ever, particularly, of course, of his Famtj we must take into 
 account also his early researches in alchemy. Dr. Bailey then 
 gave a sketch of the conditions which obtained in the alchemistical 
 societies of the time, such as the Rosenkreuzerbund, and quoted a 
 number of passages from Goethe's works in which references are made 
 to alchemy, and which can only be explained through a knowledge of 
 alchemistic lore. The lecturer concluded with a w^arm tribute to 
 Goethe's work as a true student of science, and no mere dilettante, 
 drawing attention especially to the breadth and boldness of his concep- 
 tion of the workings of nature. 
 
 XVIII.— HERDER AND GOETHE IN STRASBURG. 
 
 By Miss Gaffeon. 
 
 Paper read 19M November, 1888. 
 
 After tracing the course of Herder's life up to the time of his meet- 
 ing with Goethe, and pointing out that the five years' difierence in the 
 age had been for the elder man five years of self-dependent earnest 
 work. Miss Gafi'ron gave an account of their meeting and of their 
 intercourse together during the time Herder was laid up in his sick 
 room in Strasburg. She pointed out how readily the younger and 
 more highly gifted nature subordinated itself for the time to the 
 stimulating but censorious elder, and how deeply indebted through life 
 Goethe was to Herder's teachings no less than to the tonic effect of his 
 criticism. The latter saved him from the dangers of self-sufficiency, 
 whilst the former widened and deepened his mind by introducing him 
 to whole f?ides of Hterature, with which Goethe was still unacquainted, 
 whilst Herder had made a close study of them. It was Herder who 
 first called Goethe's serious attention to English literature, especially to 
 Shakespeare and Goldsmith, and it was he who first made him feel the 
 charm of popular poetry, and encouraged him to search for the rich 
 treasures lying concealed amongst the songs and legends of the people. 
 The direct influence of the poet Herder on the poet Goethe was compara- 
 tively small, as Herder's too severe and rather one-sided criticism had 
 an effect more intimidating than encouraging, and naturally led Goethe 
 to conceal his interest in certain subjects that were building themselves 
 up into poetic form. But the indirect influence of Herder as guide and 
 thinker on the young Goethe was simply incalculable. 
 
K. P. MORITZ. 145 
 
 XIX.— K. p. MORITZ. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Paper read Vdth November, 1893. 
 
 K. P. MoRiTz, the author of "Travels in England" in 1782, 
 published in Cassell's National Library (No. 47), was much more 
 intimately connected with the course of German literature than 
 would appear from Professor Morley's introduction. Besides his 
 " Travels in England," which quickly became popular, he wrote a well- 
 known psychological romance, " Anton Reiser," and an important 
 treatise on Prosody. He was, moreover, for some time an intimate 
 friend of Goethe. In 1782 Moritz spent seven weeks in England, and 
 whilst in London became intimate v/ith the Danish Charge d'AfFaires, 
 Schonborn, who had some eight years before met Goethe, and had some 
 interesting correspondence with him. In 1786 Moritz himself met 
 Goethe in Italy, whither his expenses had been advanced by Campe the 
 publisher, Moritz's travels in England having proved a great success. 
 In Rome Moritz met with an accident and broke his arm, and during 
 his slow convalescence Goethe, eight years his senior, was constantly 
 with him, acting as his confessor and confidant, finance minister, and 
 private secretary. The two were drawn to each other by community of 
 interests as well as by congeniality of temperament. Moritz was then 
 at work on a " Treatise on Versification," which was of the greatest 
 use to Goethe in deciding questions that arose in his versification of 
 " Iphigenie." Indeed, Goethe says : — " I should never have attempted 
 to turn * Iphigenie' ioto iambics had not Moritz's Prosody shone upon 
 me like a star of light. My conversation with the author, especially 
 during his confinement from his accident, has still more enlightened me 
 upon the subject." Goethe was evidently much interested in the young 
 author, whose life had corresponded wonderfully with his own, except 
 that fortune, which had been kind to Goethe, had been unkind to the 
 other. He advises Frau von Stein to read "Anton Reiser," and 
 recommends Moritz warmly to Herder, who became very friendly with 
 him during his visit to Rome in 1788. Jealousy, however, of Moritz's 
 favour with Goethe seems soon to have changed Herder's feelings. At 
 this time Moritz was introduced to Karl August, who took lessons from 
 him in English, and whom he accompanied to Berlin. In 1791 Moritz 
 again visited Weimar and Goethe, but he was then in very feeble 
 health. In 1793 he died in Berlin. 
 
146 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 XX.— GOETHE AS A WAR CORRESPONDENT. 
 
 By Mr. H. Spencer Wilkinson, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 5th December, 1888. 
 
 The lecturer first described in detail the actual course of the campaign 
 of 1792, from the declaration of war by France, in April, to the entry 
 of the allies into France, on August 19, followed, a few weeks later, 
 by their disastrous retreat — a retreat of which a Prussian general, who 
 was an eye-witness on both occasions, wrote : '' The Prussian soldiers 
 in 1792 oflfered, perhaps, a more pitiable spectacle than those of 
 Napoleon in the retreat from Russia." It was on August 27 that 
 Goethe, then in his forty-third year, joined the Duke of Weimar, by 
 the latter's strong wish, in the camp near Longwy, reluctantly tearing 
 himself from his quiet home and peaceful researches into the theory of 
 optics. He seems to have made himself as comfortable as circum- 
 stances would allow, with well-stocked travelling chaise, sleeping car, 
 and attendant valet, and to have busied himself more even here with 
 scientific investigations than with the events going on around him. 
 Yet, that, even so, he saw and felt something of the realities of war is 
 evident from the few vivid hints which his endeavour " not to avoid 
 the fitting degree of euphemism" could not quite cut out from his 
 account of that miserable time. This account, however, published in 
 1822, is by no means what its form implies — a personal diary, kept up 
 from day to day at the time of the events recorded. It is, on the 
 contrary, an attempt made nearly thirty years later to reconstruct from 
 the scanty notes of his own diary, supplemented by a careful study of 
 published accounts of the campaign (notably the Memoirs of 
 Dumouriez and the Memoirs of Massenbach), a picture of the daily 
 events such as might have been written at the time, but was not. 
 Goethe, indeed, took with him a diary, in which before and during the 
 campaign he made a number of entries ; but the entries seem to have 
 become briefer as the campaign proceeded and, apparently, ended 
 altogether soon after the retreat began. He was parted from his chaise 
 before October 6 ; and, though he rejoined it on the 9th, it was not 
 until the 14th, when he was already at Luxembourg, that he reopened 
 the trunk in which his diary was kept, and even then his distress and 
 disgust were such that he would not touch the diary. As an inevit- 
 able result of this method of compilation, the Campaign in France, 
 while giving in the main a faithful and life-like picture of the general 
 character of life in camp and on the march, is not free from historical 
 
ON GOETHE'S EPICS. 147 
 
 inaccuracies. The description of the day of the battle of Valmy is 
 particularly weak. [Here Mr. Wilkinson, from his own knowledge 
 of the country, showed how, in a number of cases, Goethe's memory 
 was faulty.] Goethe's description of the moral eflfect on the Prussian 
 army of not attacking is most instructive ; but his celebrated saying — 
 " From here and from to-day starts a new epoch in history " — can 
 hardly date from the day of the battle — it could only have been written 
 by the light of subsequent events. The whole work of Goethe on the 
 campaign, indeed, is spoiled by the unfortunate attempt to compile a 
 substitute for reminiscences. A work of Goethe's, written at the time 
 of the events or immediately after them, would have been of priceless 
 value to the miHtary student. There are traces enough in the work we 
 have to show that Goethe would have admirably analysed and depicted 
 the moral element which is always the dominant factor in the conduct of - 
 war. Even if Goethe had merely written out his vague recollections, 
 they would have been a valuable source ; but to cast into the form of 
 a personal diary what is after all largely a historical compilation was, 
 surely, a mistake. The Campaign is half art, half history — that is to 
 say, it is neither the one nor the other. The general maxims which 
 form part of the composition are mostly vague generalities of little 
 value ; only those few which are the result of his direct observation are 
 valuable, as, e.g., when Goethe remarks on the evils of unsystematic 
 requisitions, the first-comers always destroying more than they take. 
 The descriptions which Goethe borrows directly from his own 
 recollections are invariably vivid and faithful — his account, e.g., of the 
 camp of Praucourt, of the road from Verdun to Etain (October 11), and 
 from Longuyon to Longwy the next day. In these we have fragments 
 of Goethe himself — bits of his actual life. From these there is more to 
 be learned than from all the rest, and to such passages alone is due what- 
 ever value belongs to the work of Goethe as a war correspondent. 
 
 XXI.— ON GOETHE'S EPICS. 
 
 By Prof. C. H. Herford. 
 
 Paper read 13ih February, 1889. 
 
 In introducing his subject the lecturer drew attention to the uncertain 
 tenure of life held by the epic in modern times, and accounted for 
 this by the fact that the great shadow of Homer broods over all the 
 future of his art, ever provoking imitation of the inimitable 
 Modern epic poetry has been paralysed by its incapacity either 
 
148 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 to adopt the Homeric type or to create a new one on similar lines. 
 It has heen most successful where it has most frankly abandoned 
 the heroic atmosphere of the Iliad. Goethe alone among modern 
 poets has produced work in epic poetry which reveals in every line 
 Homeric inspiration, and itself takes rank among classics of all 
 literature. It was from his profound interest in Homer, fostered by 
 the influences of his Italian journey, that Goethe's essays in epic 
 poetry arose ; and it was during the first half decade of his friendship 
 with Schiller that all his finest work in this line was done. Reineke 
 Fuchs, produced at an earlier date (1793), may be regarded merely as 
 an experiment in the art of telling a prolonged and quasi-epic story 
 in the verse and manner of Homer ; but in the Hennann und Dorothea, 
 and in the fragmentary Achille'is, not only Homer, but Homer made 
 concrete and sensuous in painting and sculpture, lives in the finely 
 profiled men and women who move with a certain statuesque dignity 
 and quiescence upon a landscape background mellow and harmonious, 
 but somewhat colourless, like his. The method by which the efiect is 
 achieved in the two poems is, however, quite difterent. In the former 
 Goethe has been true to his natural instinct, that poetic realism which 
 works from without to within — which starts from the commonplace 
 facts of life and idealises them, merely by dissolving away that in them 
 which is discordant with the simple, primary issues of human nature. 
 In the latter he has, in a manner less natural and congenial to him, 
 merely adopted, with a few harmonising touches, the ideal creations of 
 a splendid but alien poetry. That the brilliantly successful completion 
 of Hermann und Dorothea led only to splendid promise, but to no 
 mature growth, is due partly to the absorbing character of the other 
 work on which Goethe was engaged, and partly no doubt to the 
 paralysing effect on such a poetic faculty as his of the excessive aesthetic 
 discussion which then occupied himself and Schiller. The theories 
 regarding epic poetry which they together evolved proved fatal to a pro- 
 jected epic, Die Jayd (afterwards worked out as a prose Novelle) ; and 
 another epic, Tell, begun with great ardour after Goethe's visit to 
 Switzerland in 1797, was also dropped, though for other reasons. The 
 narrow limits of a real time and place were wholly foreign to Goethe's 
 genius, and he passed on the material he had collected to Schiller. In 
 the meantime a remark thrown out by Schiller in their continued 
 discussions turned Goethe's thoughts once more to Homer ; epos and 
 drama, says Schiller, necessarily approximate as each draws nearer 
 perfection ; and for modern poets, unable to command either the stage 
 of Attic tragedy or the audience of the Homeric rhapsode, there is also 
 
GOETHE AND THE " FRANKFUUTER GELEHRTE ANZEIGEN." 149 
 
 a practical necessity of supplementing each form of art from the 
 resources and methods of the other. Hence Goethe's attempt in the 
 Achille'is to construct an epic on a tragic motive. He had sought for 
 the possible materials for another epic in the interval between Hector's 
 death and the departure of the Greeks ; but he had found only tragic 
 subjects, suited rather for dramatic than epic treatment. Now, how- 
 ever, urged on by Schiller, he laid his own doubts aside, and 
 determined to treat the death of Achilles in epic manner. He begins 
 the work with eagerness and zest, but his moods fluctuate incessantly : 
 now he is drawn within the magic spell of Homer, and determines 
 to follow him implicitly, to be antique at all costs ; now his own 
 artistic nature asserts itself, and ho aspires at a bolder, more 
 independent treatment. Yet in spite of his conviction that a modern epic 
 cannot be a mere continuation of the Iliad, Goethe seems to have 
 yielded in the immediate presence of that poem to the overpowering 
 domination of Homer, which, working at a safer distance, he had easily 
 resisted in his Hermann unci Dorothea. Instead of frankly accepting, 
 he only jealously admits the modern elements, and is in the main so 
 entirely Homeric that his occasional deviations from Homer almost 
 seem blunders. It was probably his sense of the growing discord 
 between matter and form that paralysed his interest in the splendid 
 subject he had chosen. The first canto, with its stately picture of the 
 council of gods, is more Homeric than its successors could have been ; 
 the love passion of Achilles and Polyxena, which was to bring about 
 the tragic choaax, must have been a theme hard lo combine with the 
 severely Homeric tone of the opening. And so the poem remained 
 unfiuished, and as an incompleted work it must be judged. Considered 
 as an attempt to renew Homer, the Achille'is is a splendid approximation 
 to success where success was impossible ; considered apart from Homer, 
 it is a brilliant fragment, injured by a certain compositeness of effect. 
 
 XXII.— GOETHE AND THE "FRANKFURTER GELEHRTE 
 ANZEIGEN." 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 P(q->er read IWi March^ 1889. 
 
 After pointing out that the journal in question for the year of 
 Goethe's connexion with it (1772) was now generally accessible, having 
 been republished by B. Seuffert in 2 vols, of 700 pp., small 8vo, with 
 preface (xc.) by W. Scherer, and remarks by himself (xviii) (Henniuger : 
 
150 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 Heilbronn), Mr. Cornish gave a full account of the journal and of its 
 staff for that year. It was started at the beginning of 1772 by Deinet 
 of Frankfort, as an old paper with a new name, with Merck as editor, 
 and a strong but hastily-arranged staff. The chief contributors, and 
 many of their friends and foes, pass before us like magic-lantern 
 pictures in Goethe's Pasquinade, " Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plunder- 
 sweilen," i.e.^ Frankfort. Merck, strong in literature and art, was 
 editor; but Herder, "whose eagle flight betrayed the king of birds," 
 was looked upon as the choirmaster by outsiders. The scholarly 
 Schlosser, whose head Herder pronounced " the flattest outside and 
 emptiest inside," became editor when Merck resigned in July. Goethe 
 soon joined as an active collaborator. " In the journal," writes Herder 
 to Merck, '*you are always Socrates- Addison ; Goethe, for the most 
 part, is an overbearing young lord, wdth horridly scratching claws ; 
 and I, whenever I intervene, am the Irish dean [Swift] with the whip." 
 Goethe was probably the real editor for the last three months of the 
 year, after which, weary of the task, he seems to have written only one 
 review for twenty years. The Review, price 4 guldens yearly, came out 
 twice a week in 4 pages small 8vo, with one full review and several 
 shorter notices. Its range covered popular works in the higher 
 sciences (theology, law, medicine), the whole field of history, 
 philosophy, and the fine arts and sciences. English books were to be 
 noticed, the good for praise, and the bad as a warning for translators — 
 also copp3r- plate engravings of importance. A new feature was the 
 reviewing of the other German reviews, which did not tend to 
 commend the F.G.A. to its contemporaries. It is not easy to 
 distinguish the work of the various reviewers ; the notices were, as a 
 matter of fact, as often as not the joint work of several, the outcome of 
 conferences, after which one of the number, usually Goethe, was deputed 
 to draft the review. Though wanting in knowledge of the continuous 
 history of any subject, he could take up a point, a period, or the view 
 of another, in a fresh lively manner, full of intelligent interest and play 
 of imagination ; and he often introduced into the articles of others 
 lighter touches of irony and badinage. In Goethe's collected works 
 there appear thirty-six articles picked out by Eckermann at his request 
 from the F.G.A., but of these some were certainly not written by 
 Goethe. As he says, however, "They give a complete idea of the then 
 condition of our society and personality. There is observable an 
 unbounded efi'ort to burst through all limitations." As an index to 
 Goethe's opinion at this, '* the time of minority which cannot be 
 skipped over," when he was so much under Herder's influence, the 
 
Goethe's delineation of womanhood. 151 
 
 evidence of Goethe's work for the Review is not clear; but it was 
 certainly, as Scherer says, " in matters of style his school of prepara- 
 tion for Werther." As samples of Goethe's reviews Mr. Cornish read 
 translations of " The History of Consciousness," •' Poems by a Polish 
 Jew " (so full of autobiographical interest that we wonder not to find 
 it quoted in every life of Goethe), ** Idylls by Gessner," " History 
 of Frauiein von Sternheim " and " Sulzer on the Fine Arts." In con- 
 clusion, Mr. Cornish referred to the attitude of the reviewers towards 
 orthodox theology. As theological reviewer Deinet had secured K. F. 
 Bahrdt, a rationaHstic writer of inferior caHbre, whose intemperate 
 writings at once embroiled the journal with the Frankfort clergy, and 
 caused it to be denounced from the pulpits. But the other reviewers 
 had no sympathy with Bahrdt's crude rationalism ; and though, after 
 his dismissal, theological reviews were almost given up, Herder or 
 Goethe (it is not certain which) soon took occasion to rebuke him for 
 his tone and to maintain the value, regarded as natural growths 
 merely, of scriptural ideas, such as that of the devil, which he would 
 explain away. At the end of 1772 Goethe and his friends retired from 
 the stafi" of the F.G.A. with a comic epilogue, from Goethe; and 
 Bahrdt, in the words of Herder, "got it in his clutches." 
 
 XXIII— GOETHE'S DELINEATION OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 By Mrs. A. C. Williamson. 
 
 Paper read 10th April, 1889. 
 
 If we compare literary with pictorial portraiture, we find that the 
 true test of worth is the definiteness and individuality of the figure, 
 apart from its accessory details. Speaking broadly, in this literary 
 portrait painting women writers of fiction have been more successful in 
 giving the lifelike womanly touch to their female characters than have 
 men writers. 
 
 Men for the most part make the leading features of their women 
 either so strong as to be caricature, like Becky Sharp and Mrs. Jellaby, 
 or they find no leading feature at all, and produce mere mild nonentities 
 like Rose Bradwardine and Julia Mannering. 
 
 In Goethe alone, among men writers, can women readers detect 
 iu the female representations that true instinct, that penetration into 
 the springs of a woman's nature as it Hes hidden behind a covering of 
 fashion and circumstance, which is needed for a true conception of 
 woman. The secret of this success is, as Carlyle says, that in his 
 
152 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 deep susceptive heart he felt a thousand times more keenly than any- 
 one else could feel, and with the creative gift which belonged to him as 
 a poet, he embodied these feelings and gave them local habitations and 
 names. 
 
 The circumstances with which Goethe surrounded his heroines, the 
 background, so to speak of the pictures, were those of the time in which 
 he or they lived. To our more highly developed moral civilisation 
 they may appear crude, painful, even at times repukive, but in no case 
 where Goethe has given a finished picture do such circumstances 
 necessarily form the character and disposition of the woman whom 
 they surround. We may in each case lift the portrait out of its frame, 
 w6 may give it modern and more familiar surroundings, without in 
 the least changing the character itself. 
 
 To show the truth of this generalisation, the simplest way will be to 
 look at Goethe's heroines in typical groups. 
 
 Carlyle and Lewes consider ** Philine " the cleverest sketch Goethe 
 has drawn. Clever she certainly is, but eminently unpleasant — not the 
 less womanly on that ground. She was clear, rippling, and shallow as 
 a mountain stream, without a particle of intellectual force, or a vestige 
 of common sense, or a grain of truehearted kindness ; she was a capital 
 imitation of all, but underlying this brilliance was pure hard-hearted 
 selfishness. '* Luciane " is a more cultured specimen of the same 
 
 type. 
 
 Among those characters most familiar in the Goethe writings, perhaps 
 to us least so in every day life, are those fair young girls, " Marguerite " 
 and " Marianne," all love, trust, and devotion; but who, being without 
 education or the power of thought, fell a prey to the world's caprice ; 
 they are made to tread their pitiful way before us, but they attain their 
 goal of misery unwept. 
 
 We have in " Therese " a fine embodiment of the opposite extreme — 
 strong minded, clever, coldness ; a woman who, though winning 
 universal respect, was without the power of love, and so received her 
 homage from a safe distance. 
 
 And we have many, for the master loved to draw beautiful combina- 
 tions of these extremes, women in whom loving tenderness, impulsive 
 sympathy, high culture, and strong domestic capability form an ideal 
 womanhood, who, whilst gladly devoting their powers I'or the good of 
 some loved ones, know full well what is due to themselves, nor will they 
 bend before every passing breeze. 
 
 It is this latter class of women that Goethe drew with most success, 
 and clearly with deepest sympathy. 
 
GOETHE IN LEIPZIG. 153 
 
 He has given us an outline bketch in "Lotte," drawn soon after 
 he left that home where " he and his mother were young together." A 
 development is " Nathalie " produced after the rest and awakening of 
 Italy, and the perfect, perhaps over highly coloured, picture in " Ottilie," 
 painted at a time when youthful enthusiasms were worn, and court 
 gaieties had palled, but, when the yearning for concentrated home 
 tenderness such as was possible only from the wife he foreshadowed 
 in Ottilie, was still strong in him. 
 
 The character of Ottilie as it may be taken, apart from her position and 
 surroundings, is not only one of the most womanly conceptions ever 
 evolved by the imagination of man, but the picture of a woman of excep- 
 tional force and delicacy. One hardly knows whether to wonder more at 
 Ottilie's yielding weakness, of the moulding of her entire being, her 
 necessities, her powers and her attractions into the being of him whom 
 she considered her strength ; or at the strenuous force with which she 
 controlled every impulse of speech or thought, after she had learned her 
 sin, the knowledge of which taught her all this world could tell of 
 misery ; or at the weakness which in every loving woman must be her 
 strength, but which in Ottilie yielded only to death ; or, at that last 
 great effort of strength which in death implored her lover to live for the 
 sake of the woman whose right he was. 
 
 The study of these pictures of womanhood, as the great genius of their 
 creator has shown them to us, must be rich in helpful suggestion for 
 all nations and through all time. 
 
 XXIV. —GOETHE IN LEIPZIG. 
 
 By Dk. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 Paper read 22nd November, 1889. 
 
 The lecturer spoke of Goethe's Leipzig period (1765-68) with special 
 reference to the newly-discovered letters of Goethe to his sister Cornelia 
 and his friend Behrisch. 
 
 Some important points in the poet's development during these years 
 have not hitherto been fully recognised, though Goethe dwells on them 
 in his Autobiography. On these points the letters referred to give new 
 data and materials. The spring of 1766 marks a decided turning- 
 point in Goethe's poetical development. Thrown back upon himself 
 — abandoning teachers and books for experience of life and observa- 
 tion of nature, excited by new and strong feelings and passions — the 
 young poet found for himself a new manner of utterance, in which 
 
154 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 many characteristics of the later Sturm unci Dran(/ style appear for 
 the first time. This new style is unmistakable in the letters of the 
 period, while in the lyrics aad dramatic poems it is restrained by the 
 rules and forms of the conventional schools. The lecturer contended 
 that much of what was claimed for the Strasburg or even the Wetzlar 
 period must be conceded to this earlier time. The intervening two 
 years of sickness and inactivity at Frankfort had, among other things, 
 interfered with the free recognition at this. 
 
 XXV.— GOETHE'S "HERMANN UND DOROTHEA." 
 
 By Dr. C. H. Herford. 
 
 Paper read 1 1 th December, 1889. 
 
 This work, the result of a single though not continuous effort (begun 
 August, 1796, finished March, 1797) was, if not the richest, yet 
 certainly the ripest fruit of Goethe's activity during his great Weimar 
 period. In spite of its perfect finish and its homogeneousness, it reflects, 
 though in a manner often subtle and refined, the intellectual, moral, 
 and social strivings of the time and of Goethe himself. The French 
 Revolution, the Italian journey, Goethe's friendship with Schiller, Wolf, 
 Voss, and W. von Humboldt, have all their part in it. Schiller's was 
 perhaps the most important of these influences, as it restored Goethe, 
 as he gratefully owns, to poetry, which he had as good as abandoned. 
 Wolf's theory of the rhapsodic origin of the Homeric poems encouraged 
 Goethe to vie, on a different ground, with the father of poetry ; and 
 Voss's Luise, a crude though suggestive effort to apply Greek art to 
 German life, was the immediate inspiration, though not the model, of 
 Hermann unci Dorothea. Goethe took his subject from an unpretend- 
 ing anecdote in the prolix work of G. G. Gocking (1734 and 1737j on 
 the emigration of a Salzburg Protestant community to Prussia and 
 Hanover. This simple story of the wooing of an emigrant maiden by 
 a citizen's son of Altmiihl Goethe used, in his own words, for " detach- 
 ing the purely human element in the life of a small town from its 
 excrescences and at the same time reflecting in a little mirror the great 
 movements of the theatre of the world." The two communities 
 introduced, although of one race, are separated by the broad distinctions 
 of a wandering and a stationary community, which are typified in the 
 two central figures : Dorothea, the self-dependent, heroic maiden ; 
 and Hermann, the awkward, home-bred, yet strong and tender youth. 
 The revolutionary upheaval which brings these lovers together is 
 
COUNT WILLIAM OF SCHAUMBURG-LIPPE. 155 
 
 introduced as a needful element in a purely literary conception, the 
 development of idyllic beauty out of distraction and disorder. The 
 reasons for Goethe's success in giving the air of Homer to undisguisedly 
 modern materials are the essential unity of his figures, the broad human 
 basis on which the differences of character are founded, the absence of 
 any such contrast between refinement and rusticity — as, e.g., in Long- 
 fellow's and Clough's epic idylls. The distinction between Goethe's 
 work and all Arcadianism whatsoever is that Arcadia is an imaginary 
 seclusion of elegant and sentimental souls from the stir and stress 
 of fife, while Hermanyi imd Dorothea is life itself, disengaged, not 
 from its stir and stress, but from the excrescences which overlie and 
 disguise the inner movement of human hearts. Hermann unci Dorothea 
 was, at the time of its appearance, received with warm applause by the 
 leading German critics, A. W. Schlegel and W. von Humboldt. On 
 the romantics it had little influence, but abroad its classical perfection 
 won for it a place second only to Faust among Goethe's works. 
 
 XXVI.— COUNT WILLIAM OF SCHAUMBUKG-LIPPE. 
 
 By Dr. A. W. Wabd. 
 
 PatJer read 11 th December, 1889. 
 
 Count William of Schaumburg-Lippe was by Goethe in Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit placed among those German sovereigns of the eighteenth 
 century who drew into their service distinguished men of intellectual 
 ability to adorn and benefit the society of their states. The Count (born 
 1724), who received his first education in England, was a genuinely kind, 
 loveable man, an independent thinker, a recklessly brave and enthusiastic 
 soldier. He served in Austria and in Portugal, where he came under 
 the influence of that true representative of eighteenth century reform — 
 the Marquis of Pombal. He published a work on defensive warfare, in 
 order to show how peace could be preserved by readiness for war, and 
 preceded Scharnhorst and Stein in their endeavours to create a 
 national army. The literary names chiefly associated with Count 
 William are Thomas Abbt, the friend of Nicolai, and the author of a 
 brilliant essay on " Death for our native land," whom an early fate cut 
 off from a promising career as a historian ; and Herder, who from 1771 
 to 1776 was chief officiating clergyman at Bilckeburg, the capital of the 
 Count's principality. Unfortunately, there was httle sympathy, and 
 consequently no harmonious intellectual intercourse, between the Count 
 and Herder, whose temper lacked the sweet reasonableness with which 
 
156 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS, 
 
 his great friend Goethe accommodated himself to the narrow sphere of 
 a small state. Count William died in 1776, a few months after 
 Herder's removal to Weimar. 
 
 XXVII.— GOETHE AND RELIGION. 
 
 By the Rev. L. M. Simmons, B.A., LL.B. 
 
 Paper read 22nd January , 1890. 
 
 The strong impression which Goethe, in his Dichturif/ und Wahrheit^ 
 records of the earthquake of Lisbon upon his youthful mind shows 
 at what an early age he was deeply interested in religious questions. 
 Goethe was never a teacher of religion in the sense that he propounded 
 a religious system. " True religion," he says, " is something within us, 
 something peculiar to each one of us." If he followed any religious 
 system, he may be said to incline to a poetical Pantheism. " Spinoza," 
 he says, " does not prove the existence of God, and if others accuse 
 him of Atheism, I would praise him as most Theistic and most Chris- 
 tian." Yet Goethe had great sympathy with the ancient positive reli- 
 gions. He calls the Bible not merely a popular book, but the Book of 
 the Nations. And although he might be unable to agree with the 
 evangelicahsm of Friiulein von Klettenberg, how fully did he admire her 
 piety, her moral serenity, and purity. In " Natalia " again, in the 
 eighth book of Wilhelm Meister, he draws the image of a woman 
 whose life is religious through its deeds of love and of mercy, and in 
 Hermann und Dorothea he depicts the parish pastor, who, with love and 
 without ostentation, fulfils his duty in the midst of his simple flock. 
 There was in Goethe no irreverence, no scorn for that which men hold 
 sacred, but rather a determination to discover the secret which caused 
 a positive faith to gain supremacy over the minds of millions of men. 
 
 Like Spinoza, he did not regard man as the final cause of creation. 
 He did not believe in final causes, but because he held that every 
 being existed for itself, he did not deny the dignity of man, and he had 
 a full belief in the immortality of man's soul, at any rate in continuance, 
 in another form, of our life in this world. " The conviction," he says, 
 " of our existence after death, arises from our conception of activity." 
 
 His serious views of life must for ever remove from him the stain of 
 irreligion. "To do good," he says, " for the love of that which is 
 good, that is the tradition which you must hand down to your descend- 
 ants." His true reverence makes him a prophet to his generation, 
 " Earnestness alone," he says in Wilhelm MeUter^ " makes life eternity." 
 
DER JUNGE GOETHE. 157 
 
 Goethe knew the Weltschmerz, and he appreciated the sacredness of 
 life, and this gives us the key to the psychological origin of Faust. The 
 author of Ecclesiastes found that all was vanity, and yet that the only 
 possible solution was to fear God and keep His commands ! 
 
 "Let us spend our days in work and in thoroughness, and then we 
 may think the moments of our lives are not so sad as to make us wish 
 that not a single one should tarry." This is the rehgious conclusion to 
 Faust from a different standpoint to that of Ecclesiastes, but still 
 religious. 
 
 We must agree with Schiller that Goethe had high truth and 
 integrity, and was thoroughly in earnest for the Bight and the Good. 
 We dare not call him " a great heathen." We must say of him that 
 he stood outside the boundaries of a positive religion, but we cannot 
 call him irreligious. The words in Faitst in which he speaks of his 
 belief do not contain the idea of God which the prophets of Sinai, of 
 Nazareth, of Meccah, laid at the foundations of their religion. In 
 spite of the beauties which Goethe ascribes to the Third Religion in his 
 Wanderjahre, he must be considered to stand outside positive Chris- 
 tianity. But all who, like him, teach the sacredness of life, hand down 
 to mankind a noble heritage, and Goethe must be enthroned among the 
 greatest and noblest teachers of the Aryan race. 
 
 XXVIII.— DER JUNGE GOETHE. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 5th March, 1890. 
 
 The title of this paper refers to Hirzel's well-known collection of all 
 Goethe's writings surviving from the period before he went to Weimar in 
 1776. Pointing out tliat the first edition of Lewes's Life of Goethe had 
 come out just at the full tide of the first flow of biographical materials 
 following the poet's death, the lecturer glanced at the additional matter 
 which was increasing upon us from the opening of the Goethe Archives, 
 and urged that a Goethe Society should aim at keeping students in fresh 
 contact with the original sources. To this course was due the change 
 which had come over opinion respecting Frau von Stein, and the light 
 which was being shed upon Goethe's domestic life with Christiane. In 
 answer to the question : Why did not Goethe marry before he came to 
 Weimar? Mr. Cornish reviewed his Leipzig life in connexion with 
 newly-recovered letters, and pointed out that the illness which nearly 
 killed Goethe at the end of these three years was attributed by him to 
 
158 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 a short outbreak of fast life under the influence of Behrisch. Following 
 this up, he traced the evidence that Goethe had been profoundly 
 influenced by this illness, which had been a real turning point in his 
 life ; and he pointed oiit in a letter to the same friend, dated Nov. 7, 
 1767, the occurrence, in an imaginative form, of the first germ of the 
 Faust-Margaret scenes, with several curious coincidences of language 
 and thought. Passing on to the Besenheim Idyll, Mr. Cornish urged 
 that we must go back from IHchtuwj unci Wahrheit to the 
 contemporary sources in order to see how Goethe behaved at the time, 
 and found evidence that he had been deeply ashamed of himself, had kept 
 the whole matter as secret as possible, and had probably done so very 
 much under the fear of his father's displeasure. Eight years later he 
 paid a visit to the Brion familj', and after a friendly reception felt that 
 he could now *' feel his conscience at ease about these reconciled ones." 
 The traces of Goethe's remorse which exist in Goetz and Stella were 
 alluded to, and the probable bad eff'ect of Goethe's faithlessness upon 
 his subsequent life, both in his inability to love again as he had once 
 done, and in his attempt to substitute a Platonic afl'ection for an 
 ordinary love and marriage. In the case of Lili, the relations between 
 the two families contributed greatly to break off the engagement ; but 
 all through the pre-Weimar period, as well as the early years at that 
 place, the unwillingness of the elder Goethe to help his son to settle, 
 together with the son's dislike of the profession of an advocate, were the 
 constant determining causes which kept him from marrying, while the 
 circumstances of the court life again put additional obstacles in the way. 
 The relation — a pure one — with the Frau von Stein, was an attempt, 
 manfully clung to, to find a pis-aller ; and when this came to an end on 
 Goethe's return from Italy, it was the tenacity with which, as the 
 result of his whole past experience, Goethe clung to his unpromising 
 amour with Christiane which went far to redeem it and to secure him a 
 tolerable share of domestic happiness. 
 
 XXIX.—WILLIAM TAYLOR, OF NORWICH. 
 
 By Mr. John Finlayson. 
 
 Pa2>er read l^th March, 1890. 
 
 The lecturer, in giving an account of Taylor's life, pointed out how 
 unfairly Carlyle dealt with him in his criticijsm of Taylor's Hutorical 
 Survey of German Poetry (republished in Carlyle's Miscellaneoua 
 Essays). William Taylor was born in 1765, in Norwich, then the 
 
WILLIAM TAYLOR, OF NORWICH. 159 
 
 centre of an intellectual life and a literary activity without its equal in 
 the provinces. In his tenth year he was sent as a boarder to the Rev. 
 R. Earbauld, chiefly known as the husband of Mrs. Barbauld. This 
 learned lady exercised a marked influence on him, both then and in later 
 years, when she submitted the MS. translation of her favourite pupil to 
 the Literary Society of Edinburgh. In his 14th year Taylor was sent 
 by his father, a well-to-do merchant (not connected with the well- 
 known Taylors, of Norwich), on the grand tour — Italy, Switzerland, 
 France — mainly for the advancement of his commercial career ; but the 
 lad's tastes lay rather in the direction of literature than commerce, and 
 it was the language and literature of the countries he visited that 
 attracted his chief attention. In July, 1781, he again went abroad, 
 this time to Germany, where he spent a year in Detmold to acquire the 
 language. Happily he got into a thoroughly literary circle, and not 
 many months passed before he came under the spell of a language and 
 literature which was at that time not only rousing individual minds into 
 unwonted activity, but moving the nation itself. In 1782 Taylor 
 returned home, brimful of enthusiasm for German literature, which was 
 then all but unknown in England, in spite of the fact that the Court was 
 essentially German and that German music, in the person of Handel, 
 was warmly appreciated. From 1791 on till his death in 1836, Taylor 
 devoted himself exclusively to literature, and the main aim of his work 
 is thus told by Lucy Aikin live years after his death : — *' To what 
 extent he was indebted for his literary stores and for the cast of his 
 thought and style to German models it is not for one unacquainted 
 with that language to determine ; but, whatever may have been his 
 obligations, they were assuredly not unrequited. When his acquaint- 
 ance with this literature began there was probably no English 
 translation of any German author which had not been made through 
 the medium of the French, and he is very likely to have been the first 
 Englishman of letters to read Goethe, Wieland, Lessing, and Burger 
 in the original. He hastened to spread the fame of his new favourites, 
 and from this time translations or imitations, more or less close, from 
 the German formed the bulk of his writings." Concerning Taylor's 
 first translation from the German, that of Biirger's Lenore, the 
 same lady gives an interesting anecdote, gathered from the lips of Sir 
 Walter Scott himself as he was relating it to Mrs. Barbauld. After 
 reminding her that long before the ballad was printed she had carried 
 it with her to Edinburgh and read it to Mr. Dugald Stewart, " he," 
 said Scott, " repeated all he could remember of it to me, and this, 
 madam, was what made me a poet. I had several times attempted the 
 
160 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 more regular kinds of poetry without success, but here was something 
 I thought I could do." Before long, indeed, Taylor exercised a quiet 
 but powerful influence on a wide circle, to whom he was known as the 
 first German scholar of his day. Amongst others (besides Scott), 
 Southey and Coleridge acknowledged their obligations to him. As a 
 translator he is best known by his renderings of Lenore, Lessing's 
 Nathan der TFrnv?, and Goethe's Iphitjenie, but he was also one 
 of the most prolific, original, and discriminating contributors to the 
 periodical literature of his day ; and his articles on foreign literature 
 gave a character to the Monthly Review and the Monthbj Magazine 
 which raised them above all their rivals. 
 
 XXX.— WILLIAM TAYLOR AS A TRANSLATOR, WITH 
 
 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS VERSION OF 
 
 GOETHE'S "IPHIGENIE." 
 
 By Mr. H. Preisinger. 
 
 Paper read 2Qth March, 1890. 
 
 The lecturer prefaced his discussion of Taylor's translation by some 
 general remarks on the three main classes of translators — (1) those who, 
 imitating the material elements of form of the original, as words, metre, 
 &c., may be called close or literary translators ; (2) those who, imitating 
 the less tangible elements of form, not binding themselves to the same 
 words or metre, but using the same kind of words or cast of sentence as 
 tlflB original, seek to reproduce the leading qualities, and through them 
 its general efi'ects, these are the free translators ; (3) the imitators, 
 who are content with reproducing the sense of the original, giving it for 
 the most part a form of their own. As examples of these classes of 
 translators Mr. Preisinger cited respectively Bayard Taylor in his 
 "jPamt," Gary in his ''Dante,'' and Pope in his ''Iliad.'' W. Taylor's 
 work, said Mr. Preisinger, is never close, but usually free translation, 
 sometimes even imitation ; but as an imitator, where Taylor improves 
 upon his original, it is not by expanding but by simplifying and 
 compressing it. His strength lies in dignity and impressiveness rather 
 than in tenderness and grace ; hence he is more successful in an ode of 
 Klopstock's than in Goethe's lyrics or ballads. Mr. Preisinger pointed 
 out that Taylor's best work as a translator is perhaps the Iphifjenia 
 (published in 1790). This work he discussed fully, comparing it on the 
 one hand with the original and on the other with Miss Swanwick's 
 translation (pubhshed in 1875), in each case reading the passages on 
 
THE LETTERS OF GOETHE'S MOTHER, ETC. 161 
 
 which his conclusions were based. These conclusions were, in brief, 
 that as regards the reproduction of the sense both versions are fairly 
 good, but as regards the form and general effect Taylor, though the 
 freer translator, comes far nearer to the original. He particularly excels 
 Miss Swanwick in his language, using plain, forcible English words 
 where she uses derivatives from Greek and Latin ; in his tact and 
 feeling for the original where metaphors are used or where adjectives 
 have to be added by the translator : and especially in his fidelity in 
 following Goethe's simplicity of thought and syntax, avoiding inversions, 
 and putting the emphatic words very early in the sentence, so as to 
 serve as guides to the sense. His conciseness, too, stands him in good 
 stead in rendering Goethe's single lines of passionate dialogue, so hard 
 for the translator. Taylor's desire for the forcible, the direct, the 
 natural sometimes carries him too far ; he is in places stiff and bald 
 where Goethe is full of flowing grace, and he scarcely equals the music 
 of Goethe's verse ; but lie rises to the occasion in all important 
 passages, and is seldom unworthy of his model. He comes nearer to 
 his original in dignity, simplicity, and impressiveness, but does not 
 reach it in grace and delicacy. His translation is undoubtedly a free 
 one, but on the whole it is at once more faithful and more readable 
 than that of Miss Swanwick. 
 
 XXXI.— THE LETTERS OF GOETHE'S MOTHER TO HER 
 
 SON, TO CHRISTIANE, AND TO AUGUST 
 
 VON GOETHE. 
 
 By Miss Marie Liebert. 
 
 Faper read IQth April, 1890. 
 
 Goetbe'p saying that the main value of letters lies in their preserving 
 the immediate touch of life is well brought out by this correspondence. 
 It gives a vivid picture of Goethe's mother in her old age, as she lived 
 through the troubled times at the end of the last and the beginning of 
 this century in happy contentment, reflecting her own brightness on 
 those around her. The letters, with the exception of the two first 
 (1780 and 1781) extend in an unbroken series from 1792 to 1803, the 
 year of the writer's death. In 1792, Frau Rath was in her 62nd year, 
 a widow since 1782, living in comfortable circumstances in her house 
 in the Hirschgraben. Goethe was then on his way back from the 
 French War, which had ended in the ignominious retreat of the Allied 
 Armies from Fiance, and French troops were actually scouring the 
 
 M 
 
162 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 country to the gates of Frankfort. Yet Fran Kath declined to leave 
 her native city and to accept the refuge which was offered her at 
 Weimar, and her letters contain amusing descriptions how she pre- 
 served her cool head amidst the anxieties of her neighbours. " It has 
 ever been my practice," she writes, " not to wail or despair before the 
 event. I put my tiust in God, turn the present to use, and do not lose 
 my head." 
 
 Her delight at the evacuation of Frankfort by the French, and her 
 regret when the prayer for the Emperor is omitted in church on the 
 extinction of the Holy Roman Empire are characteristic of her German 
 patriotism, which even takes the extreme form of protest against the 
 use of the Latin type in printing. 
 
 In 1795, she, on the advice of her son, sells her old house and 
 removes to a flat in the Goldene Brunnen, and it speaks for her unfail- 
 ing good temper that she derives a great amount of pleasure out of her 
 removal. 
 
 The most interesting of the subjects touched upon in the letters is 
 Frau Ratli's relations to Christiane. 
 
 It is clear that she loved Christiane for her own sake as much as for 
 her son's, whose domestic comfort and happiness she insured. "My 
 dear, dear daughter," she writes in 1801, " how can I sufficiently 
 thank you for all the love and care which you have had for my son ? 
 May God requite you." We should expect to find Frau Rath the most 
 delightful of grandmothers, and her letters and messages to August bear 
 this out completely. Her youthful disposition, her sympathy with the 
 young, and her fascinating gift of story-telling, make one feel sorry 
 for her grandson that he could not have been her habitual companion. 
 
 Of Goethe as a father these letters help to give a tender and sym- 
 pathetic impression. 
 
 Considering how sparing Goethe and his mother were in expressing 
 their feelings on any unpleasant or sad subject, Frau Rath's references 
 to the children whom he lost efi,rly point to a deepfelt grief on his part, 
 and recall the touching verses " Knaben, Mitternachtsgeborne " in the 
 last scene of Faust. 
 
 Her mother's pride and joy in Goethe's poetic work were unbounded. 
 His Wilhelm Meinter she calls dessert to be enjoyed on Sundays 
 only. The ConJesdonH of a Beautiful Soul, which remind her of 
 his departed friend Friiulein von Klettenberg, impress her particu- 
 larly, and she glories in Hermann und Dorothea, in which, indeed, a 
 lasting monument to herself is erected in the character of Hermann's 
 mother, full of many of her own intimate traits, such as her pleasure in 
 
GOETHE'S PLAN FOR THE "HELENA." 163 
 
 giving, her housewifely habit of hoarding thiags for future use, her 
 kindly wisdom, helpfulnesiB, and ready sympathy. 
 
 Her intellectual interests were by no means narrow. She was a dili- 
 gent reader of the literature of her day ; a keen and critical theatre 
 goer, and she frequently contrasts longingly the active intellectual life 
 of Weimar with the comparative indifierence of Frankfort to the higher 
 interests. 
 
 The beginning a^nd the end of her philosophy is, however, a cheerful 
 acquiescence in life. " I take joy in life while it lasts. I do not seek out 
 thorns ; if I cannot remove a stone from my path I walk round it. Each 
 day has some pleasure for me, and the crown of all is my faith in God, 
 which gladdens my heart and makes my face cheerful." 
 
 XXXII.— aOETHE'S WEIMAR LIFE, 1775—1786. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 5th November, 1890. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 1.] 
 
 XXXIII.— ON GOETHE'S PLAN FOR THE " HELENA." 
 
 By Dr. Herman Hager. 
 
 Paper read Srd Decemher, 1890. 
 
 The lecturer drew attention to the 15th volume of the Weimar 
 Goethe edition, and to the fresh light which it throws on the history 
 of the second part of Faust, and particularly of the Helena episode. 
 He gave a translation of the earliest plan — a very slight sketch of a 
 scene " in a pleasant spot in the Rhine valley," in which Helena 
 finds herself once more a living woman on the upper earth — aud 
 ^f the parts bearing on Helena from the more detailed plan of the 
 second part of Faust, which Goethe wrote in 1816 for the fourth 
 volume of Dlchtung unci Wahrheit. This plan was to come in before 
 the final separation from Lili, i.e., as dating from the summer of 
 1775, and the early date thus assigned to the first conception of the 
 Helena is confirmed, as Schroer points out, by internal evidence 
 which proves that Goethe was directly influenced in his handling 
 of the old story by his studies of Hans Saehs, prosecuted at that 
 time. The lecturer showed thai in all probability not only was 
 the Helena planned, at least in part, thus early, but that in 1780 
 
164 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 Goethe had already written it down in some shape or other, for he 
 notes in his diary of that year (March 23) " half of the Helena at the 
 Duchess Amalia's," and the next day ** the other half of the Helena," 
 which seems distinctly to point to the reading aloud of some Helena 
 version. The earliest version preserved to us is, however, that portioa 
 (265 lines) which Goethe wrote in 1800, and entitled " Helena im 
 Mittelalter, Satyr-Drama, Episode zu Faust." Mention is frequently 
 made of it in his letters to Schiller in the autumn of that year, but it is 
 now printed for the first time. This version is distinctly simpler in 
 diction than the later one (1827); the dilierence in metre is not so 
 marked, though the trimeter of the earlier version is more regularly 
 iambic. From 1800 there was a long pause in Goethe's work at the 
 second part of Famt. In 1816 he drew up the above-mentioned plan 
 for Dichtimg und Walirheit, but the work itself rested until 1825 
 When he then took it up again, he was for some time doubtful as to 
 the most fitting ending for Euphoiion, the offspring of the union of 
 Faust and Helena, the ending sketched out in the plan of 1816 no 
 longer satisfying him. Further he felt that some kind of introduction 
 to the Helena was necessary, "in order to bridge over the deep abyss 
 between the sad ending of the first part and the appearance of the 
 Greek heroine," In 1826 he dictated no fewer than three such intro- 
 ductions, now printed in the Weimar edition. 
 
 XXXIY.— ON GOETHE, BURGER, AND MULLNER. 
 
 By Dr. A. W. Ward. 
 
 Faper read Srd December, 1S90. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 48.] 
 
 XXXV.— ON SOME ASPECTS OF GOETHE'S "EGMONT." 
 
 By Dr. A. W. Ward. 
 
 Address f/iven at the Oi^en Meeting^ Z\st January, 1891. 
 
 The President, after remarking on the slow elaboration of Fjjmont 
 by Goethe and on its adaptation in 1795, seven years after its first 
 performance, by Schiller, dwelt on two points of view suggested 
 by the drama: (1) Goethe's treatment of the historical groundwork,, 
 and (2) his presentment of the character of Egmont. The lecturer 
 thought it probable that Goethe was attracted by the personality of 
 
ON SOME ASPECTS OF GOETHE's "EGxMONT." 165 
 
 Egmont rather than by the historical movement of the revolt of the 
 Netherlands. Although the drama breathes throughout the deep 
 aversion to a cruel despotism which in Goethe, as he himself re- 
 marked to Eckermann, was quite compatible with dislike of the French 
 Hevolution, there is in it no hint as to the duty of active resistance 
 except in the seeming quibbles of the pettifogger Vansen, and in the 
 desperate ecstasy of Clarchen. Goethe derived his material mainly 
 from the old authorities which served Schiller shortly afterwards 
 in his historical essay, Ber Ahfall der Niederlande, especially from 
 Strada, a Koman Jesuit, the conscientious writer of a History of the 
 Insurrection, "after the manner" of Tacitus and Sallust. From 
 Strada are taken many of Goethe's details, such as the account of the 
 image-breakers in Flanders, Alva's jealousy of the Princess-Regent, 
 the inimitable description of Margaret of Parma which Egmont gives to 
 Clarchen. The figure of Alva's sou Ferdinand, and his attempt to save 
 Egmont, though not taken from Strada, are historical. lu his general 
 treatment of his theme Goethe seized upon the essential character of the 
 movement, conveying the true historical notion that the causes of the 
 outbreak lay in the tyranny of Philip II. 's religious decrees and the fear 
 of further oppression, while the subsequent chastisement of Alva's rule, 
 in its turn, caused the prolonged struggle tliat followed. Not quite so 
 easily as this historical framework does the historical Egmont accom- 
 modate himself to Goethe's hero. Strada, indeed, in his comparison 
 of Egmont and Orange, recalls Goethe's characterisation of the two 
 men in the famous scene of the second act. "Egmont," he says, 
 " was a man of gay, open, and self-confident mind ; the disposition of 
 Orange w^as sombre, inscrutable, evasive. The former gained praise 
 by his readiness of resource ; but in the latter it was possible to put 
 trust. Egmont was an Ajax, stronger in the field than in council ; 
 Orange a Ulysses, readier to contend indoors in debate than abroad 
 in arms. . . . And to complete the unlikeness, Egmont was a 
 man of extremely handsome features, strong-limbed, and full of dignity 
 of aspect ; Orange had a spare face, a bald head, and a sallow com- 
 plexion. Both stood high above all others in the people's esteem, 
 only that men loved Egmont, but Orange they worshipped." The 
 truth is that Lamoral Count Egmont, Prince of Gavre, was, certain 
 military gifts and courtly graces apart, a very ordinary man. He 
 accompanied Charles V. as a lad on his African expedition, married a 
 Bavarian princess, wa^s made a Knight of the Golden Fleece, fought at 
 the siege of Metz, and in 1554 headed the embassy to Queen Mary of 
 England. In the ensuing war with France he held a hi^ih command. 
 
166 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 and gained the devotion of the army and the enthusiastic love 
 of his people by the victories of St. Qiientin and Gravelines. 
 His pride and his grandeur, his extravagance and his joyous 
 disposition, his pre-eminence in all manly exercises, blinded men to 
 the fact that behind all these lay a disposition weak as wax, and a 
 character unstable as water. Cardinal Granvella, the real author 
 of Philip's policy in the Netherlands, found out the true Egmont, 
 and by a pregnant metaphor designated him as the friend of smoke. 
 After joining Orange in the protestations against Granvella's policy 
 addressed to the king, Egmont undertook an embassy to Spain, 
 in which he allowed Philip's ati'ability and promises of favours to blind 
 him to his unyielding firmness of purpose in all matters of real import- 
 ance. Towards the confederation of the nobles he maintained a doubt- 
 ful attitude, and after the disturbances of the image-breakers, restored 
 order in Flanders with merciless severity. But it was too late to avert 
 his fate ; he had already been doomed to destruction, with Orange, 
 Hoorne, and other leaders of the nobihty, before Alva's army began its 
 northward march. A eulogistic letter from the king and Alva's 
 courtesies lulled him into security ; and in spite of repeated warnings, 
 he did not dare to fly. So he was caught easily ; and, hoping to the 
 last through the dreary months of imprisonment, unresigned to his fate 
 even on the scalfold, he died a martyr in spite of himself. This is 
 the Egmont of history, but it is not Goethe's Egmont. Goethe's 
 purpose is to exhibit his hero in the buoyant springtide of life ; and this 
 conception a figure like Clarchen could alone render complete. For 
 him Egmont is a soldier crowned by victory, and a great noble whose 
 voice carries weight in afi'airs of state ; but first, and above all, he is 
 the bright and genial child of nature, beloved of all — a man who leads 
 his hfe with self-confidence and trust in human nature. He must be a 
 patriot ; for he is in instinctive sympathy with his people, whose sons 
 he has led to battle, and whose cause he has espoused against the 
 oppression of the foreigners. His statemanship may fail as compared 
 with that of an Orange ; but if he knows not how to preserve his life 
 for his country, he knows how to benefit her by his death. 
 
 XXXVI.— GOETHE AND FRAU v. STEIN. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M,A. 
 
 Paper read '25 fh February, 1891. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 21.] 
 
INFLUENCE OF GOETHE'S " FAUST " IN ENGLAND. 167 
 
 XXXVII. — THE LITERABY INFLUENCE OF GOETHE'S 
 
 " FAUST " IN ENGLAND, 1832-1852, WITH SPECIAL 
 
 REFERENCE TO MR. P. J. BAILEY'S '' FESTUS." 
 
 By Me. James Tait, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 1 5 th Ajml, 1 89 L 
 
 Until the very end of Goethe's life, his influence and that of German 
 literature in general had to contend with strong prejudice and misunder- 
 standing, and made no great way. The revolutionary excesses on the 
 Continent caused everything foreign to be looked upon with dislike or 
 suspicion in most English circles. The current estimate of German 
 literature was formed upon the most eccentric manifestations of the 
 Sturm und Drang and the Romantic School. Goethe himself was very 
 generally judged and condemned by Wcrther and Wdhelni Meinter. 
 Wordsworth, so we are told by Emerson, was so disgusted with 
 Wilhelm MeUter that he threw the book unfinished to the other end of 
 the room, and Carlyle records that it was considered in certain circles a 
 " vulgar work which no gentleman could have written and no real lady 
 should profess to have read." The Edinburf/h Review in 1817 charac- 
 terised the Aus meinem Lehen as " abounding in characteristics which 
 we fear will be regarded as detracting from the respectability of the 
 work and the author." A select few, prominent among them Coleridge 
 and William Taylor of Norwich, strove with only indifferent success to 
 dissipate these prejudices and misunderstandings. 
 
 Taylor's translation of the Iphif/enie fell entirely flat, and the 
 eccentric publisher, Sir Richard Phillips, is said to have been a heavy 
 loser by such ventures. Most translators from the German thought it 
 incumbent upon them to deal very freely with their originals in 
 deference to English taste. Stanley in his translation of Burger's 
 Lenore entirely altered the ending *'tD save our ideas of a jast and 
 benevolent Deity,'' and even Coleridge debated with himself whether it 
 became his moral character to translate the Prologue of Faust into 
 English. Goethe M^as chit fly known in England by Werther passed 
 through the distorticg medium of bad English versions of French 
 translations and worse translations from the original. Those of the 
 great poets of the first quarter of this century who in any way came 
 under the influence of Goethe were just those, with the exception of 
 Scott, who broke most violently with insular prejudice. 
 
 But these prejudices began to subside after the Peace. Carlyle towards 
 the close of the twenties impressed the real greatness of Goethe upon the 
 
168 ABSTRACTS OF PAPEJIS. 
 
 English public ; the death of Goethe called forth a chorus of laudation 
 and a flood of magazine articles and translations. While two indifferent 
 translations of the First Part of Fau.'it had hitherto met the demand, 
 nearly half the numerous versions of Famt which have appeared in 
 English were produced between 1832 and 1850. Vamt thus came to 
 exert a somewhat remarkable influence over the young poets who were 
 welcomed with rather uncritical praise in the slack water between the 
 disappearance of the older generation and the general acceptance of 
 Browning and Tennyson. In Browning's own Paracelsus (1835) a 
 problem is worked out clearly suggested by the current popularity of 
 the Faust legend. It was probably not by mere accident that 
 Browning gave the name of Festus to the friend of Paracelsus. 
 
 But a much more direct filiation connects with Faust the Festus (1839) 
 of Mr. Philip James Bailey, who has Hved to see a jubilee popular 
 edition of the poem which he gave to the world at the early age of 
 twenty-three. Festus, the name of the hero of this portentous pro- 
 duction, is simply a variant of Faust. The poem opens with a prologue 
 in Heaven in which, after the opening song of the Cherubim aDd 
 Seraphim, Lucifer requests the usual permission to tempt Festus in a 
 reverential address to Grod, which is obviously intended to convey a 
 tacit rebuke of Mephistopheles' *' blasphemy." In fifteen thousand 
 lines (since more than doubled) of dreary, mystical monologue and con- 
 versation, Festus with the help of Lucifer expounds the theological 
 doctrines corresponding to Goethe's non-theistic position that evil is 
 purely negative : " eine Kraft die stets das Bose will, und stets das 
 Gute schafft." Lucifer confesses himself but "the shadow cast from 
 God's own light." He can only act for the glory of God. In the 
 course of the argument Festus and Lucifer are made to visit Heaven, 
 Hell, and the Moon ; and other scenes are laid in Space, the Centre, 
 Anywhere, Elsewhere. Love episodes are interspersed in which 
 Festus puts to the proof Lucifer's promise that he " should love ten as 
 others love but one," carrying ofi" the last fair one from Lucifer himself. 
 Mr. Bailey's imitation of Faust, of whose scepticism he so profoundly 
 disapproves, is not disguised ; there are scenes between Festus and Helen, 
 Festus and a student, Festus takes an aerial journey, and many other 
 parallelisms might easily be adduced. The poem ends at last with the 
 salvation of Festus and all mankind, together with Lucifer and his host. 
 Though formless to a degree, and destitute of real poetical merit, it had 
 a surjjrising success, running through five editions in fifteen years. 
 This was not simply the unintelligent popularity that often attends works 
 of a religious and mystical tendency. Festus fell in with a vague 
 
169 
 
 emotional revolt against the material character of the time, and gave 
 iin impulse to some young poets like Dobell, of greater merit, whose 
 work also shows signs of their study of Faust. They were laughed 
 into obscmity as the *' Spasmodic School " by Professor Aytoun in 
 his racy burlesque of Firmilian. 
 
 A more familiar example of Faust influence in these years, of 
 very different calibre to Fe.stu.s or Balder^ is Clough's Dipsijchu.s 
 (1850), which has been called, with less inappropriateness than 
 usually attaches to such comparisons, "The English Faust." 
 Dipsychus is the latter-day Faust, a thoughtful Englishman of the 
 second quarter of the nineteenth century, who, passing through the 
 •" great sinful streets " of Naples on Easter Day, concludes in bitter- 
 ness of spirit that Christ is not really risen as men are proclaiming, 
 and asks himself whether life is worth living. The poem is, as the 
 title suggests, a dialogue of a mind with itself, the promptings of the 
 ^' other voice" being sometimes put into the mouth of Dipsychus 
 himself, but usually coming from the Spirit, " his Mephistophele?." The 
 Spirit has all the mordant humour and bitter irony of his prototype, 
 but is hardly embodied, is scarcely more than the "worldly thoughts " 
 of Dipsychus. The whole poem is a delightfully fresh and original varia- 
 tion upon the old theme. 
 
 XXXVIII.— " TORQUATO TASSO " IN ITS EELATION TO 
 
 GOETHE'S EARLY LIFE AT WEIMAR AND HIS 
 
 ITALIAN JOURNEY. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 26th November, 1891. 
 
 Starting with Goethe's remark to Eckermann (1827), that Torquato 
 Tasso had had its origin in a blending, in Goethe's mind, of his own life and 
 person with those of the real Tasso, the lecturer proceeded to illustrate this 
 text by extracts from Goethe's Letters and by a sketch of his inner life 
 during his first ten years at Weimar. Goethe's Tasso has its being in 
 a. somewhat artificial world, and the crises of the drama are only 
 fraught with consequence because of the charmed atmosphere in which 
 they happen. Of the characters Alphonso seems meant for the Duke 
 Carl August, but the resemblance does not go very deep. Antonio had 
 various prototypes, but cannot be fixed upon any one in particular. 
 He is the practical man, who, by his nature, is in opposition to the poet. 
 Leonora Sanvitale has no strongly marked individuality, and her mild 
 
170 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 rivalry with the Princess in Platonic affection for Tasso scarcely rise* 
 to the level of a motive. Leonora, the Princess, stands for the Fran 
 von Stein, and this could be abundantly proved by a comparison of 
 Goethe's Letters with the earlier scenes. Their very conversations are 
 worked into the play. In studying the question how far Tasso repre- 
 sents Goethe himself, attention should be given to the " Lenz Episode " 
 of Goethe's early life at Weimar. Lenz (1750 — 1792), one of Goethe's 
 friends in his life at Strasburg, showed many of the qualities which dis- 
 tinguish the Tasso of the play from Goethe ; he visited Weimar in 
 1770, enlisted the sympathies of the Frau von Stein, and had to leave 
 in consequence of an offence which, although unknown, seems to have 
 presented an analogy to the chief incident in Tasso. In giving a sketch 
 of Lenz's life, the lecturer discussed the hypothesis first advanced by 
 Fritz von Stein, that Goethe's mysterious correspondent Krafft, whom 
 he supported for years in Ilmenau, was no other than Lenz, a 
 hypothesis which is rendered improbable, though it is not actually dis- 
 proved, by our present knowledge. In spite of the strong infusion of 
 Lanz in Tasso (which Goethe himself admits), there is also in it much 
 of the Goethe of the Werther period. In Weimar Goethe had found a 
 place of refuge from the, to him, unbearable conditions of his Frankfort 
 life ; and there he lived mainly in the friendship of the Frau von Stein, 
 in his studies and in his official work, in comparative indifference to 
 the outside world. This period of contentment and rest is reflected in 
 the earlier part of Tasso ; but in the later we can already see the work- 
 ing of a new spirit, the first clear symptoms of which are perhaps 
 shown in Goethe's letters to the Frau von Stein from Leipzig, at 
 Christmas, 1782, leading on to the period of discontent and unrest, of 
 new ideas and new ideals, which was to issue in his journey to 
 Italy. During these first ten years of Goethe's life at Weimar a great 
 change had come over the educational Hfe of Germany. The school of 
 useful knowledge and natural methods represented by Basedow and the 
 Philanthropinists, the successor of the old classical school which Goethe 
 connected with the name of Heyne, had in its turn been superseded by 
 the new classical learning, whose main advocate, F. A. Wolf, defined it 
 as the knowledge of human nature as exhibited in antiquity. With the 
 ideas of this new school, Goethe, through his study of Winckelmann 
 (with who?e views he had first become acquainted through the 
 Leipzig professor, Oeser), was in profound sympathy ; and this made 
 his Italian journey so important and fruitful for him. It is clear how 
 small a portion of Goethe's activities at the time finds a place in Tasso. 
 There are certainly many touches reflecting his Weimar experiences^ 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD ON GOETHE. 171 
 
 such a3 Ills love of seclusion and the morbid symptoms produced by it, 
 his need of contact with the world, his fondness for Weimar, and his 
 occasional finding fault with the Duke ; but of the new iiieas working 
 in him there are only faint glimpses in the play. Goethe, then, began 
 l\isso when happy and contented at Weimar ; he carried it on during 
 that period of divine unrest which issued in his flight to Italy ; he 
 completed it in the. latter part of his Italian journey, before he had had 
 time to sum up its total effect upon his life. It is mainly a monument 
 of the phase of his life, the other records of which are his Diary and 
 his Letters to the Frau von Htein. This explains its limitations and 
 its lack of interest as a drama, and this likewise makes it so worthy of 
 the Goethe student's attention. 
 
 XXXIX.— MATTHEW ARNOLD ON GOETHE, 
 By Mr. H. Peeisinger. 
 Paper read IQth November, 1891. 
 Matthew Arnold's acquaintance with Goethe probably dates from 
 Oxford, whither he went in October, 1841, in his twentieth year, eight 
 months before his father's death. It was made through Carlyle's 
 translation of WUhehii Meistcr, and the interest then aroused 
 accompanied him throughout life. In the preface to the Poems (1853), 
 Arnold gives evidence of a considerable study of Goethe ; and in mo^t 
 of his subsequent critical work (1861 — 1888) the influence of Goethe's 
 thought can be traced ; while his quotations from Goethe (by 
 preference from the Letters and Conversations) are both frequent and 
 prominent. Passing on to Arnold's criticisms on Goethe, Mr. 
 Preisinger grouped them under two chief heads: (1) on Goethe as a 
 thinker, (2) on Goethe as a poet. Under (1) the first utterance of 
 Arnold's occurs in the Memorial Verses on the Death of Wordsworth 
 (1850), in which is already struck the keynote of most of Arnold's 
 subsequent judgments on Goethe, his praise of Goethe's clearness of 
 vision, of the truth of his criticism of life. There is also in them a half- 
 veiled disapproval of Goethe's supposed artistic quietism. Ai-nold is 
 never tired of calling Goethe a great, the greatest of critics, of praising 
 his thoroughness, his impartiality, his calm naturalistic view of things, 
 and as late as 1878 he speaks of Goethe as the greatest " poet of 
 modern times, not because he is one of the half-dozen human beings 
 who in the history of our race have shown the most signal gift for 
 poetry, but because, having this gift, he was at the same time in the 
 width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life by far our greatest 
 
172 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 modern man." Another side of (loethe's influence Arnold set forth in 
 liis essay on Heino (Kssays in Criticism, 1865), by laying stress on the 
 liberating power of Goethe's thought and on his action as a dissolvent 
 of the old European order of thing.^. The charge of an artistic quietism 
 or egoism in Goethe is repeated in the essay " A French Critic on 
 Goethe" (Quarterhj Review, 1878). The lecturer suggested that, if 
 Arnold had intended to consider Goethe's intellectual activity from all 
 sides, he would not have confined himsalf to those points. The world 
 of science and of art, apart from literature, both of them of such vital 
 importance to Goethe, lie outside Arnolds range. The designation of 
 Goethe as a master critic does not exhaust Goethe's intellectual work, 
 and hardly lays sufficient stress upon the constructive and creative side 
 of it, which Carlyle (Death of Goethe, 1832) has emphasised so well. 
 Nor would Goethe have acquiesced in a description of his work as 
 negative and destructive, while he never contemplated or recommended 
 an absorption in art to the exclusion of the world of everyday life. 
 Mr. Preisinger then discussed Arnold's criticisms on Goethe as a poet, 
 mainly contained in the Kssays on ( 'eltic Literature (1867), and A French 
 (■ritic on German Literature (1878). Arnold admits Goethe to be the 
 greatest German poet, the greatest poet of modern times ; but he does 
 not place him above Homer, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Dante, or 
 Shakespeare. He finds him wanting in passionate power ; he thinks his 
 poetry not inevitable enough ; he denies him the great style, in the 
 sense in which Pindar or Dante or Milton had it ; he says that in his 
 lyric poetry he lacks the magic note in his handling of nature ; 
 he finds him wanting in the dramatic faculty. Arnold's criticisms 
 on Goethe's individual works are practically a running com- 
 mentary on Edmond Scherer's articles on Goethe (1876), which 
 Arnold quotes with approval as to many points. The substance 
 of these criticisms is that the first part of Faust and 
 the Gedichte are Goethe's best work, because they are the most 
 straightforward. " Goetz " and " Werther " are treated as juvenile 
 works, although Arnold admits the life and power of Goetz, and 
 Scherer the sincerity and passion in Werther. The world of Tasso 
 and Iphi(jenie in Arnold's opinion is too much of an artificial world, 
 compared with the world of the Af/amemnon and Lear ; even 
 Faust suffers in comparison with these, as it is not a perfect whole 
 as they are. Egmont is put aside as a weak piece, and Hermann 
 unci Dorothea as a product of exquisite dilettantism, while Wilhelm 
 Meister offends by an exhibition of much of the commonplace side in 
 Goethe. Scherer's criticism of Goethe's later literary life is that the 
 
NECESSITY OF A STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATION. 173 
 
 man of reflexion in Goethe became more and more prominent, to the 
 detriment of his poetical side, and that the representative works of that 
 time, the Wanderjahre and the second part of Fmist are dead of a 
 hypertrophj^ of reflexion; and a mere mass of symbols, hieroglyphs, and 
 even mystifications. Scherer's summary — which Arnold substantially 
 accepts — is that Goethe is a poet full of ideas and of observation, full 
 of sense and taste,, of feeling and acumen, united with an incompar- 
 able gift for versification ; but that Goethe has no artlessness, no 
 tire, no inventioD, that he is wanting in the dramatic fibre, that 
 reflexion in him has been too much for emotion, the savant for the 
 poet. The lecturer, while admitting the usefulness for Goethe 
 students of taking account of judgments on Goethe in many respects 
 difi'ering from one's own, expressed his dissent from the views on 
 Werthevy Fau.4, Hermann und Dorothea, Wilhehii Meister. He 
 pointed out that Goethe knew and acknowledged his deficiency in 
 tragic power, but that, though inferior to Shakespeare in the dramatic 
 faculty, he was a creator of living characters, especially in his women. 
 He further considered that Goethe's eminent lyrical power was not 
 sufiiciently recognised by Arnold and Scherer, and that Goethe's style 
 at its best, though different, was not inferior to that of Dante. 
 
 XL.— SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. I. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Pajje?' read '20th February^ 1892. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 90.] 
 
 XLI.— ON THE NECESSITY OF A STANDARD ENGLISH 
 TRANSLATION OF GOETHE'S PROSE WORKS. 
 
 By Dr. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 Paper read I8th March, 1892. 
 
 Dr. Meyer thought that a wider and deeper study of Goethe was now 
 more than ever desirable, and that our age could ill afford to ignore 
 Goethe as a guide in the domain of art and science. As a thorough know- 
 ledge of German was a rarity in England, the majority of readers would 
 have to trust to translations for their knowledge of Goethe. But the 
 chances were not in favour of good translations of German works of 
 literature into English. This was due partly to the comparative 
 recentness of German literature, partly to the conditions of translation. 
 
174 ABSTRACTS OF PAPE'.^S. 
 
 Whilst a few ackoowledged mastt^r-works, such as Homer's, Virgil's, 
 and Dante's poems, continued to inspire tirst-rate men to attempt 
 new renderings of them, many of the other works of Hterature were 
 left to the mercies of the literary hack. In Goethe's case much, 
 though by no means all, of his poetry was in some way or other trans- 
 lated into English. Of the prose works, the three chief novels, the 
 MemoiiH (DicJduwj und IVahrheit)^ the Italian Ju2iniei/, some of 
 the Spriiche^ the Annah, and the Theory of ( '<dour were 
 translated, but most of Goethe's critical and scientific works were not. 
 Nor were the existing translations perfect, or even adequate. Carlyle's 
 version of Wilhehii MeUter was indeed most careful and most 
 readable. The translations of Werther and the Elective Affinities 
 in Bohn's series deserved praise, and so did Blackie's Wisdom of 
 Goethe, but none of them was perfect, whilst the versions of ]>ich- 
 tuwj und Wahrheit by Oxenford and of the Annals by Nisbett 
 must be condemned as faulty. The lecturer went on to consider the 
 translations of Goethe's prose works under the aspects of (1) 
 verbal accuracy, (2) general fidelity, and (3) style. As regarded 
 accuracy, it was singular how often even first-rate translators 
 like Carlyle went wrong on the simplest words, and an amusing 
 series of mistakes were quoted, chiefly from Oxenford's translation. 
 As regards intrinsic fidelity, the attitude of most translators towards 
 Goethe might be characterised as " Bowdlerising," as an attempt to 
 humour the supposed prejudice of the British public against GoetLe 
 by altering or omitting passages which were considered capable of 
 giving ofi'ence. Even Carlyle was not free from his tendency. In 
 style also few of the existing translations had succeeded in reproducing 
 the subtler shades of Goethe's prose, not to speak of translations like 
 those by which Goethe's Werther became known in England, 
 mostly inadequate renderings of garbled French versions of that novel, 
 Avhich gave no more idea of Goethe's original than the seventeenth 
 century performances of "Hamlet" by strolling players in Germany 
 gave of Shakespeare's play. In conclusion. Dr. Meyer emphasised his 
 main point, that the task of translating master- works of literature was 
 beyond the power of one individual, and that it was a case where the 
 usefulness of co-operation and combination was very apparent. 
 
 XLII.— SOME OF GOETHE'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION. II. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish. 
 
 [Reprinted, page 104.] 
 
GOETHE AND ADDISON. 175 
 
 XLIIL— GOETHE AND ADDISON. 
 
 By the Rev. F. F. Cornish, M.A. 
 
 Paper read 2\st December, 1892. 
 
 Mr. Cornish pointed out that the similarities between Addison and 
 Goethe, as well as the influence of the former upon the latter, were by no 
 means inconsiderable. Touching briefly upon the points of contact 
 which are to be found in Addison's poems (Latin and English) with 
 Goethe's, the lecturer dwelt with greater detail upon the period of 
 Goethe's life when, after his return from Wetzlar, the life and character 
 of Addison seem to have attracted him more particularly. Goethe had 
 then to make choice of a profession. That of an author, to the 
 exclusion of any other work, was in the then state of German literature 
 and copyright clearly out of the question. He had, therefore, to 
 choose between the practice of the law at Frankfort and employment in 
 some legal capacity in one of the many tmall German states, a career 
 which a good many of his friends had adopted ; and the example of 
 Addison, journalist, pamphleteer, statesman, must have presented many 
 attractions. When Goethe and his friends took over in 1773 the 
 Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeit/en, the undertaking was an evident 
 imitation of the Spectator', and when in the play of Clavigo (1774) 
 Goethe sketches the career of a successful journalist rising to high 
 office in the state, the comparison with what seemed at a distance the 
 way in which Addison had achieved rank and distinction is not 
 unnatural. Another analogy is presented by Goethe's devotion to the 
 Frau von Stein and Addison's protracted courtship of his subsequent wife, 
 the Countess of Warwick. Both Goethe and Addison made their 
 Italian journey, and had many common interests in that country. If 
 Addison had a wider and more exact acquaintance with the Latin poets 
 Goethe had more of historical and artistic knowledge ; but both took an 
 eager interest in the ItaMan dramatic art of their time, and were 
 influenced in their after work by their stay in Italy. Some interesting 
 points suggest themselves with regard to the Prologue in Heaven of 
 Goethe's Faust. Into this Prologue, which in the maiu is taken 
 from the Book of Job, Goethe has worked Psalm xix., the first (and 
 older) part, which declares the glory of God in His creation, 
 corresponding to the " Hymn of the Archangels," the second, 
 which speaks of the moral law in man, being treated in the remainder 
 of the Prologue. There is a hymn by Addison the one beginning '* The 
 spacious firmament on high," almost in the same metre and the same 
 
176 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 number of lines as the Hymn of the Archangels, which is also an 
 expansion of the first part of the Psalm, and corresponds rather closely 
 to Goethe's verses. Lastly, the lecturer called attention to the 
 similarity in the characters of the two men, who both rose to high rank 
 in the state and yet lived the placid life of men of letters, made many 
 friendships of no ordinary type, conciliated many opponents, and whose 
 iafluence upon the language and literature of their nation was 
 important and lasting. 
 
 XLIV.— GOETHE AND SERVIAN FOLK-SONG. 
 
 By Mr. H. Pretsinger. 
 
 Paper read 28th Januajy, 1893. 
 
 [Reprinted page 77.] 
 
 XLY.— GOETHE AND LAVATER. 
 By the Rev. H. H. Snell, M.A. 
 Paper read 15th February/, 189o. 
 The Rev. H. H. Snell read a paper on " Goethe and Lavater." It 
 was difficult to imagine, he said, two men less likely to agree than 
 Goethe and Lavater. Their point of contact was art, their points of 
 separation innumerable. G. H. Lewes calls Lavater " a compound of 
 the intolerant priest and the factitious sentimentalist"; but he and other 
 admirers of Goethe who use similar language about Lavater, make it 
 the more unintelligible that Goethe should have been so impressed by 
 him. • It is indisputable that at one time Goethe esteemed Lavater 
 highly, permitted great intimacy of relations, and frequently used 
 towards him the language of endearment and admiration. The fact of 
 the matter is that Lavater was an able and worthy man, however 
 differentiated from Goethe in philosophical ideas ; and it was his 
 originality as well as his force of character which made such impression 
 on Goethe. Lavater first approached Goethe in 1774, on Herder's 
 recommendation, in order to gain his assistance in his Phymujnomical 
 pyagments. At that time Lavater was 33 years and Goethe 25 years 
 old. In the account which, in Dichtuufj und Wahrlieit^ Goethe gives 
 of his intercourse at that time with Lavater and Basedow, he strongly 
 contrasts the gentle and purifyicg influence of the former with 
 Basedow's self-absorbed and argumentative ways. Goethe, who was 
 then extremely interested in the new science of physiognomy, 
 
GOETHE AND LAVATER. 177 
 
 contributed actively to Lavater's work, which appeared between 1775 
 and 1778 under the title, Physiognomical Fragments for the Promotion 
 of the Knowledge and Love of Mankind; and their correspondence 
 during that time is mainly concerned with it. In 1778 Lavater was 
 appointed deacon at the church of St. Peter's in Zurich, and published 
 some of his evening sermons under the title, Revelation of Jesus to St. 
 John. In connexion with this arose the first germ of differences between 
 the two friends. Goethe says about the book, " There is nothing in it 
 for me except the fact that you wrote it. It seems as if I perceived 
 throughout a man who has failed 1o catch the fragrance of him 
 who there is represented as the Alpha and Omega. I think I am 
 also of the truth, but it is the truth of the five senses." If the 
 differences, which are here first indicated, had arisen between two men 
 of the same temperament as Goethe, they need not have led to 
 separation. But when one man is a Goethe, who views variant opinions 
 on the most sacred subjects as elements which may equably be absorbed 
 into the process of self- culture, and one is a Lavater, whom enthusiasm 
 for his conception of religious truth would carry to the extreme of self- 
 sacrifice, such a divergence must result in a rupture. How much 
 Goethe, even in 1779, thought of Lavater, is shown by the following 
 words in a letter to Frau von Stein : " It is with Lavater as with the 
 Rhine falls, when you see him again it seems as if you had never 
 really seen him before ; he is the very flower of manhood, the best of 
 the best." We can see by Goethe's letters in 1781 and 1782 how 
 frequently religious subjects arise between them, and how slowly 
 Goethe realises the incompatibility of their systems of thought. 
 Lavater could not make a distinction between his philosophy 
 and truth. His encounter with Moses Mendelssohn, in 1769, whom he 
 challenged to controvert his proofs of Christianity or to become a 
 Christian, is an illustration of his intellectual exclusiveness. Even in 
 their earlier letters, nothing but absorption in the work of the 
 Physiognomy could have prevented Lavater from noticing the absence 
 of reciprocity in Goethe's allusions to religion ; and it is astonishing 
 that Goethe bore so long the dogmatism of Lavater, who did not mince 
 his language, and was indifi'erent to personal considerations. The fluid 
 non-scholastic character of Goethe's thought no doubt postponed the 
 collision between the two friends, but it came at last. 
 
 It is a tribute to Lavater's insistence that he has drawn from Goethe 
 utterances on the object of Christianity which have become classic. " You 
 take the Gospel as it stands," Goethe writes in 1782, " for the most 
 divine truth. A voice from heaven would not convince me that water 
 
 N 
 
178 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 burns and that fire quenches, that a woman gives birth without know- 
 ing man, and that a dead man rises from the grave. I rather regard 
 this as a blasphemy against the great God and His revelation in 
 Nature." And at another time he says : " It is not a question of mere 
 exclusion, as if the opposite were not or were nothing, but it is a 
 question of shutting us out where the dogs are, which are fed with 
 crumbs from the Master's table, where the falling leaves of the tree of 
 life, the muddied water of the eternal streams, are for our healing and 
 refreshing." And in a letter of July, 1782, occurs the oft-quoted 
 expression: *'I am indeed no anti-Christian, no un-Christian, but yet 
 a decided non-Christian." In spite of these divergences, the letters 
 never show any signs of diminishing cordiality ; they simply cease 
 altogether in December, 1783. When Lavater, on a missionary tour in 
 July, 1786, came to Weimar, Goethe took care to be out of the way, 
 saying *' What have I to do with the author of l^oidim Fllate'' (a book 
 of Livater's published in 1783) ? In explaining his rupture with Lavater 
 to Eckermann (February, 1829), Goethe said: "Lavater was a really 
 good man, but he was subject to great delusions. Truth and nothing 
 but the truth was not his concern ; he deceived himself as well as others. 
 That is why there came a rupture between us." 
 
 The inference to be drawn from the evidence concerning the relations 
 of the two men is that their intimacy was suspended in consequence of 
 diflferences, which were first simply theological, but which by reason of 
 opposite temperaments became personal. There was a radical philosophi- 
 cal divergence between them, Lavater viewing the world as the expression 
 of divine thought as much separate from God as the consequence from 
 the cause, and Goethe viewing the world as containing within it the 
 principle of its own existence ; but that was not enough in itself to 
 divide them. Lavater was not any more a hypocrite than a man 
 naturally is who has a great ideal and is unable to live up to it, but he 
 cannot be altogether cleared from the charge of superstition — ejj., in 
 his attitude towards Cagliostro, in whom he believed even after he had 
 been unmasked as an impostor. As for Goethe's attitude towards 
 Christianity, it cannot be decided by the collection of his utterances in 
 which sacred names occur. With the quotations given from Goethe's 
 letters to Lavater there may be contrasted others, such as the words 
 which occur in one of his last conversations with Eckermann : "Let 
 spiritual improvement continually increase, let natural science ever 
 grow in extent and depth, and let the human mind be expanded as 
 much as it please, it will never transcend the height and morality of 
 Christianity, as it grows and shines in the Gospels." 
 
GOETHE IN SICILY. 179 
 
 XLYI.— GOETHE IN SICILY. 
 By Mr. C. E. Tyrer, M.A. 
 Paper read iSth October, 1893. 
 
 Goethe after considerable hesitation, embarked at Naples on March 
 27, 1787. He reached Palermo after four days of a somewhat rough 
 passage, the involuntary leisure of which he employed in versifying some 
 acts of Tasso. His first impressions of Palermo and its surroundings 
 were vivid and deUghtful ; in fact, he seems to have seen everything 
 coideur de rose, lie calls Monte Pellegrino the most beautiful promon- 
 tory in the world, and speaks with enthusiasm of the luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion in the gardens and open spaces. Palermo must in his time have 
 been even more beautiful than it is to-day, when factories, railways, and 
 ugly suburbs have detracted from its charms. In Goethe's description 
 of Palermo and of Sicily in general, his chief interests — -joy in the 
 beauties of nature, enthusiasm for the natural sciences, and love of 
 classical art — are very clearly displayed. On the other hand, he 
 shows no appreciation of the remarkable medieval architecture of 
 Sicily, and passes by without notice buildings so fine as the Palace 
 Chapel and the Cathedral of Monreale, with it3 unique mosaic paintings. 
 He is comparatively indifferent to historical associations ; and in the 
 Yalley of the Oreto, instead of listening to his guide's description of the 
 battle between the Carthaginians and Romans fought there, he tries to 
 make out the geology of the district by examining the pebbles in the 
 stream. In the public gardens he follows his speculations about the 
 Urpflanze, which later on led to the publication of his Metamorphosis of 
 Plants (1790). He takes interest in the family of Count Cagliostro, 
 whom later (1791) he made the subject of one of his plays, Der Gross- 
 Kophta, and in the monstrous statues, even now visible, of the Villa 
 Pallagonia ; and he describes very faithfully the fine grotto-chapel of St. 
 Rosalia, the patron-saint of Palermo, still apparently unchanged. 
 
 From Palermo, on April 18, Goethe rode into the interior of the 
 island with his artist-friend Kniep, passing through Alcamo, Segesta, 
 and Castelvetrano to Girgenti, and everywhere visiting the remains 
 of classical art. The lecturer described from his own experience 
 the temples of Girgenti, the ancient Acragas, the remains of which still 
 exist near the southern wall that forms the base of the irregular triangle 
 occupied by the ancient city. Portions of six temples survive ; one, the 
 so-called Temple of Concord, in an almost perfect condition, owing to 
 its having been converted during the middle ages into a Christian 
 church, the additional strength thus imparted to its walls enabling it to 
 
180 ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS. 
 
 resist the action of the earthquakes which completely shattered most of 
 the others. Several are now mere heaps of ruins. These temples, like 
 many others in Sicily, were all built of a porous and friable limestone, 
 originally coated with stucco for the sake of appearance and durability ; 
 and when the stucco covering was lost, the stone beneath was gradually 
 eaten away by the action of the Scirocco, and thus became unable to 
 resist the earthquake shocks. Portions of the stucco-coverings of these 
 temples, as well as of others in Sicily, were originally painted in bright 
 colours. 
 
 From Girgenti, Goethe passed into the interior of the island, an un- 
 dulating hilly country, bare of trees, but richly covered with corn, 
 and gay in spring with an abundance of brilliant flowers, the towns 
 being perched high on the hills or on the very crests. He 
 spent one night in a miserable inn at Castro Giovanni, the ancient 
 Enna, on the top of a commanding rock in the centre of the island and 
 surveying almost the whole of it, but with nothing to suggest its 
 mythical renown as the scene of the rape of Proserpine, it being now 
 almost destitute alike of trees, of flowers, and of water. On May 1, 
 Goethe reached Catania, an uninteresting modern town, all its anti- 
 quities having been eithe* destroyed by earthquakes or deeply buried 
 beneath the lava of Etna. He then proceeded northward along the 
 beautiful and fertile coast to Taormina. Of the remains of the Greek 
 theatre and the prospect commanded by its site, he gives a glowing but 
 by no means over-enthusiastic description. Goethe's last days in Sicily 
 were spent at Messina, then still suffering from the effects of the 
 terrible earthquake which had almost destroyed the town four years 
 before ; and his interview and relations with the governor are recorded 
 in his diary with much vividness and humour. He took passage on a 
 French merchant-man for Naples, where, after narrowly escaping ship- 
 wreck, he arrived once more about the middle of May. 
 
 The acquaintance Goethe made with "the queen of islands" was 
 an imperfect one ; and it is in particular a matter of surprise that he 
 omitted to visit Syracuse, perhaps the most interesting spot in the whole 
 of Sicily. But nevertheless, he carried away with him a delightful im- 
 pression, and speaks, in writing to Herder shortly afterwards, of the 
 wealth of material he has acquired, which he will need rest and leisure 
 to use. Of his projected drama of Xausikaa, over the plan of which, 
 as he informs us, he *' dreamed away " the greater portion of this time 
 in Sicily, nothing unfortunately remains save the scheme and a few 
 fragments. 
 
III.— SHORT NOTES READ AT MEETINGS OF THE MANCHESTER 
 GOETHE SOCIETY, 1886-1893. 
 
 (1.) February 23/y/, 1887. Mr. Preisinger proposed some emeiida- 
 tions in the volume of Goethe's Journals and Letters from Italy 
 published by the Goethe Society, p. 151,1. 18, "betrachte" for 
 "beleuchte"; p. 155, 1. 24, " Messe " for "Masse," and 
 '' zogen " for " gegen " ; p. 166, 1. 5, " heben " for " haben." 
 (2.) February 2drd, 1887. Dr. Ward produced a copy of a London 
 translation of Werther (1794), in the preface of which Goethe 
 is described as " author of several musical pieces," and where a 
 translation of Werther by the Queen of France is mentioned. 
 (3.) February IQth, 1888. Dr. Ward called attention to an article by 
 Bielschowsky ^^Bie Urbilder zu Hermann und Dorothea " (Preuss. 
 Jahrb. 1887, H. 4), suggesting that in his sketch of the character 
 of Dorothea and her adventure with the soldiers Goethe had in 
 his mind Lili Schonemann and her perilous flight from Strasburg 
 in 1794. This suggestion did not commend itself to Dr. Ward. 
 (4.) February 18th, 1888. Dr. Hager mentioned that the source of 
 Goethe's song, "De>- Goldschmiedgesell" had been shown by 
 Dr. J. Goebel (American Modern Language Notes, May, 1887) 
 to be Henry Carey's " Sally in our Alley J' Viehoff had sug- 
 gested that further inquiries would no doubt show that Goethe's 
 poem was based upon some popular song, and an entry in 
 Eiemer's diary (12th Sept., 1808) makes this perfectly clear. 
 (5.) April 28th, 1888. Dr. Hager read a note on the earliest perform- 
 ances of Marlowe's '^Doctor Faiistus'' in German in 1608 in 
 Graz, and on C. A. Vulpius's highly improbable story (cf. Z. f. 
 d. Altert., 1888, p. 21) that as early as 1588 a German comedy, 
 " Doctor Faust." was performed in Nuremberg, with a woman 
 acting the part of Grethle. Meissner thinks that the Frankfort 
 performances in 1592 were in English ; this view is supported 
 by the contract of Philip Kiingman (cf. Zeitsch. f. vergl. 
 Litteraturg. 1887, p. 86), in which he pledges himself to trans- 
 late into and work out of his language any argument or subject 
 of a play suggested by the Landgrave of Hessen-CasseL 
 (6.) October 27th, 1888. Dr. Hager drew attention to a recent 
 pamphlet by F. Bertheau, of Piapperswyl, where it is stated 
 that the remarks on the spinning industry in the 3rd book of 
 the Wanderjahre are an accurate description of the Zurich 
 cotton industry at the end of last century. 
 
182 SHORT NOTES, ETC. 
 
 (7.) October 27th, 1888. Dr. Hager gave a brief account of the aim 
 and scope of the Weimar edition of Goethe's worJcs, and showed 
 by instances of curious misprints how much the ordinary text 
 requires revision. He criticised in some particulars the first 
 volume of poems, referring specially to the new version of the 
 " Konigin Thule " in the so-called Urfaust which almost agrees 
 in the first part with the older version (in von Seckendorf's Volks 
 u. andere Lieder^ published 1782, and in the second part with 
 the later form of the ballad ; Dr. Hager suggested that Goethe 
 revised the ballad in Weimar, and that Fraulein von Gochhausen 
 copied the older version which Goethe had brought to Weimar. 
 
 (8.) January 12nd, 1890. Dr. Ward called attention to the notice in 
 Mr. Gladstone's article on Dr. Dollinper of a discussion on 
 Goethe's character between Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Dollinger, 
 in which the latter appears as the champion of Goethe. 
 
 (9.) March 5th, 1890. Mr. Boeder called attention to one of the 
 letters by Baron Caspar Pdesbeck, written in 1780 {Brief e eines 
 Reisenden Franzosen) describing a visit to the Weimar Court 
 and criticising Goethe and his followers from a conservative 
 point of view. 
 
 (10.) April 16th, 1890. Mr. H. S. Wilkinson drew attention to a 
 parallelism between the contract scene in Faust and a passage 
 in Fiousseau's Reveries d'un Promeneur Solitaire (written 1777-8, 
 published 1782). 
 
 (11.) April 16th, 1890. Dr. Hager discussed the question how far 
 Goethe's portrait published in Frasers Magazine (March, 1832) 
 was from the hand of Thackeray. 
 
 (12.) May ISth, 1892. Dr. Hager called attention to a reprint of Moritz's 
 essay Vber die bildende Xachahmung des SchiJnen (1788), of 
 which Goethe published part in his Italian journey. 
 
 (13.) May 18th, 1892. Dr. Hager called attention to Goethe's Gesprdche, 
 edited by W. F. v. Biedermann, and read several letters of the 
 American Cogswell describing interviews with Goethe not men- 
 tioned by Biedermann. 
 
 (14.) December 21st, 1892. Mr. C. Boeder communicated some 
 parallels to Goethe's Zauherlehrling from North English 
 {Fryer, English Fairy Tales), Scottish {Henderson, Notes on 
 the Folklore of the North Countries), and Scandinavian 
 {SnorrVs Edda) folklore. 
 
CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRAKY 
 OF THE 
 
 MANCHESTER GOETHE SOCIETY, 
 
 1893. 
 
 I.— Goethe's Collected Works- 
 
 1. Goethe's Werke. Edited by Fr. Strehlke, G. v. Loeper, H. 
 
 Diintzer, W. v. Biedermann, S. Kalischer. Berlin : Hempel. 
 36 parts in 23 vols. No. 1. 
 
 2. Goethe's Werke. Herausgegehen im Auftrag d. Grossh. Sophie v. 
 
 Sachsen. 1-4. Bd. Gedichte. 6-7. Bd. Westostl. Divan. 8. Bd. 
 Gotz. Egmont. 9. Bd. Singspiele. 10. Bd. Iphigenie. Tasso. 
 Nat. Tochter. 11. Bd. Elpenor. Clavigo. Stella, &c. 12. Bd. 
 Singspiele. 14-15. Bd. Faust. 20. Bd. Wahlverwandtschaften. 
 26-29. Bd. Dichtung and Wahrheit. 35-36. Bd. Tag-und 
 Jahreshefte. 43-44. Bd. Cellini 46. Bd. Winckelmann. Hackert. 
 —Weimar: Bohlaii. 1887-1893. 24 vols. 
 
 No. 17a (to be continued). 
 
 3. Goethe's Werke. Herausgeg. i. A. d. Grossherzogin Sophie v. 
 
 Sachsen. II. Abtheilung : Goethe's Natuncissenschaftliche Schrif- 
 ten. 1-3. Bd. Zur Farbenlehre. 6-7. Bd. Zur Morphologie. 
 9. Bd. Mineralogie and Geologie. Weimar : Boblau, 1890, 1891, 
 1892. 6 vols. No. 17b (to be continued). 
 
 4. Goethe's Werke. Herausgeg. i. A. d. Grossh. Sophie v. Sachsen. 
 
 III. Abtheilung: Tagehilcher. 1.-4. Bd. 1775-1812. Weimar : 
 Bohlau, 1887-1891. 4 vols. No. 17c (to be continued). 
 
 5. Goethe's Werke. Herausgeg i. A. d. Grossh. Sophie v. Sachsen, 
 
 IV. Abtheilung: Brief e. 1.-12. Bd. 1764-1797. Weimar: 
 Boblau 1887-1893. 12 vols. No. 17d (to be continued). 
 
184 
 
 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 6. Goethe's Werke. Volhtiindige Ausgabe letzter Hand. Stutt- 
 
 gart and Tiibingen : Cotta, 1827-1830 (short of vol. 6, 8, 25, 
 86-40). 32 vols. No. 859a. 
 
 7. Goethe's Werke. YollsUindige Ausgabe letzter Hand. Stuttgart 
 
 and Tubingen: Cotta, 1830. 40. Bd. 1 vol. No. 859b. 
 
 8. Goethe' sneue Schnfte7i, II. Band. Heineke Fuchs. Berlin : Unger, 
 
 1794. 1 vol. No. 280. 
 
 9. Goethe's Werke. Illustrirt. Edited by H. Diintzer. 70-78. 
 
 Lieferung, [Marchen (Schluss). Novelle. Gute Weiber. 
 Wahrheit und Dichtung I.-VIII. Buch] . Stuttgart : Hall- 
 berger. 9 vols. No. 344. 
 
 10. Gocthens Schriften 2. Bd. Gotz. Clavigo. 3. Bd. Stella. 
 
 Claudine. Puppenspiel. Carlsruhe : Schmieder, l'/78. 2 
 parts in 1 vol. No. 282. 
 
 11. Der jun^e Goethe. Seine Brief e und Dichtimgen 17641776. 
 
 Edited by M. Bernays. Leipzig : Hirzel, 1875. 8 vols. No. 2. 
 
 II. — Goethe^s Iiyrical Foems. 
 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 12. Goethe's Werke 1. d 2. Band. Gedichte. Ed. by G. v. Loeper, 
 
 Berlin : Hempel, 1882 and 1883. 2 vols. No. 385. 
 
 13. Goethe's altestes Liederbuch. Ed. by L. Tieck. Berlin: Scliulze, 
 
 1844. Nachlese zu Goethe's Gedichten. Ed. by G. v. Loeper. 
 Berlin: Hempel, 1873. Das TagebwJi. Wien: Kosner, 1879. 
 Zwei Goethereliquien. Marburg : 1876. 1 vol. No. 146-149. 
 
 18a. Xenien,1796. Ed. by E. Schmidt and B. Suphan. Weimar: 
 Goethe-G., 1893. 
 
 14. Goethe's Gedichte,!. Theil. Stuttgart & Tubingen : Cotta, 1821. 
 
 1 vol. No. 394. 
 
 15. Festgedichte. {Mashnzug, Weimar 18. Dec. 1818.) By Goethe. 
 
 Stuttgart : Cotta, 1819. . 1 vol. No. 319. 
 
 16. Minerva, Taschenbuch fur das Jahr 1822. Leipzig : Fleischer. 
 
 [Contains 8 ballads by Goethe.] 1 vol. No. 3C1. 
 
 B . — Tean slations. 
 
 17. The Bride of Corinth. English translation by C. Tomlison. 
 
 London: 1890. 1vol. No. 391. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 185 
 
 18. Goethe's Elegies (28) and Schiller's Song of the Bell. Latin 
 
 translation by J. D. Fuss. Louvain : Collardin, 1824, 
 1 vol. No. 384. 
 
 19. Carmina X Goethii. (Latin translations. J By E. F. Haupt. 
 
 Leipzig : Weidmann, 1841. 1 vol. No. 349. 
 
 20. Carmina Latina {Latin translations from Schiller^ Goethe, etc.) 
 
 By M. Seyffert. Leipzig : Holtze, 1857. 1 vol. No. 277. 
 
 21. Ballads by Goethe. Bohemian trayislation by L. Quis. Prag : 
 
 Gregr, 1879. 1 vol. No. 336. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 22. Schiller und Goethe im, Xenienkampf. By E. Boas. Stuttgart 
 
 and Tiibingen : Cotta, 1851. Two parts in 1 vol. No. 22. 
 
 *23. Die Schiller-Goetheschen Xenicn. By J. Gassner. Wien : 1870. 
 1 vol. No. 219* 
 
 24. Vier Jahreszeiten von Goethe. Gedeutet von Martin. Berlin : 
 
 Nicolai, 1860. 1 vol. No. 272. 
 
 25. Lb. Wanderers Nachtlied. By Masing. Leipzig : Bidder, 1872. 
 
 1 vol. No. 228. 
 
 26. Herbstgefiihl. By H. Corvinus. Braunschg : Meyer, 1878. 
 
 1 vol. No. 218. 
 
 27. Euphrosyne. By W. Hosaeus. Dessau: Barth, 1871. 1vol. 
 
 No. 316. 
 
 28. A Critical Examinatio7i of Goethe's Sonnets. By C. Tomlinson. 
 
 London : Nutt, 1890. No. 388. 
 
 29. Etude sur les j^oesies lyriques de Goethe. By E. Lichtenberger. 
 
 Paris : Hachette, 1877. 1 vol. No. 202. 
 
 [N.B. — S^^ also XII.— Critical and Philological 
 Writings on C^oethe^s Works-] 
 
 III. — Groethe's Epic Poems. 
 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 30. Hermann und Dorothea. By Goethe. Neue Ausgabe. Braun- 
 
 schweig: Vieweg, 1799. 1. vol. No. 264. 
 
 31. Hermann und Dorothea. By Goethe. 2. Auflage, 1799. 1vol. 
 
 32. Hermann und Dorothea. 1798. 1 vol. No. 288. [No. 265. 
 
186 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 83. Hermann und Dorothea {Hmifj. preface and German text). 
 
 Budapest: Franklin, 1880. No. 208. 
 
 84. Hermann und Dorothea. German text with French notes, edited 
 
 by B. Levy. Paris: Hachette, 1886. 1 vol. No. 271. 
 
 85. Goethe's Reinecke Fuchs, Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1822. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 283. 
 
 36. Beituke Fuchs. By Goethe (mit 37 Stahlstichen). Leipzig : 
 
 Payne, 1871. 1 vol. No. 259. 
 
 B. — Translations. 
 
 37. Hermann und Dorothea. {Latin) translation by B. G. Fischer. 
 
 Stuttgart : Metzler, 1882. 1 vol. No. 287. 
 
 88. Hermann und Dorothea. In Prosa umgebildet v. Kersten. Lon- 
 
 don : Vogel, 1823. 1 vol. No. 295. 
 
 89. Hermann and Dorothea. English translation by T. Holcroft. 
 
 London: Longman, 1801. 1vol. No. 392. 
 
 40. Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. English translation (Anon.) 
 
 London : Ward and Lock, 1854. 1 vol. No. 362. 
 
 41. Hermann und Dorothea. German text and French translation. 
 
 By B. Levy, Paris : Hachette, 1888. 1 vol. No. 340. 
 
 42. Hermann und Dorothea. Italian translation by Jagemann. 
 
 Halle : Reinicke. 1 vol. No. 324. 
 
 43. Herman y Dorotea. Spanish translation by M. de Cabrerizo, 
 
 Valencia: Estevan, 1879. 1 vol. No. 8. 
 
 44. Hermann und Dorothea, Bohemian translation by J. Jungmann. 
 
 Prag : Kobrov. 1 vol. No. 335. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 45. Wilhelm v. Humboldt's jEsthetische Versuche iiber Goethe's 
 
 Hermann und Do7'othea. 4. Aufl. Ed. by H. Hettner. 
 Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1882. No. 384. 
 
 46. Hermann d- Dorothea. Essai. By J. J. Weiss. Paris : 
 
 Durand, 1856. 1 vol. No. 347. 
 
 IV. — Goethe's Dramatic Poems. 
 
 1.— FAUST. A.— Editions. 
 
 47. Faust. Edited by K.J. Schroer. Heilbronn : Henninger, 1886- 
 88. 2 vols. No. 45. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 187 
 
 48. Goethe's Faust in ursprunglicher Gestalt. Edited by E. 
 
 Schmidt. 2 Abdr. Weimar : Bohlau, 1888. 1 vol. No. 47. 
 
 49. Faust. Fin Fragment, Edited by B. Seuffert. Heilbronn : 
 
 Henninger, 1882. 1 vol. No. 48. 
 
 60. Goethe's Faust. Edited by 0, Devrient. Karlsruhe : Brauu, 
 1881. 1vol. No. 108. 
 
 51. Fine Faust-Trilogie. By F. Dingelstedt. Berlin : Paetel, 1876. 
 
 1 vol. No. 251. 
 
 52. WuUheims Buhnenhearheitimg d. 2, Th. v. Faust. Leipzig : 
 
 Kessler, 1874. No. 114. 
 
 53. Goethe's Faust. Edited by Wollheim & A.Marks. Dresden: 
 
 Pierson, 1880. No. 109. 
 
 54. Texthuch zu Comjwsitionen des Filrsten A. Radziivill zu Goethe's 
 
 Faust. No. 115. 
 
 B. — Tkanslations. 
 
 55. Faust. Fnglish translation by L. Filmore. Devonport: 
 
 1841. 1 vol. No. 32. 
 
 56. Faust. French translation by A. de Lespoir. Paris, 1840. 
 
 1 vol. No. 273. 
 
 57. Faust. (French translation^ with notes.) By H. Blaze. Paris : 
 
 Charpentier. 1 vol. No. 164. 
 
 58. Faust. French translation. By A. Lay a. Paris : Sandoz, 
 
 1873. 1 vol. No. 203. 
 
 59. Faust. French translation. By H. Bacharach, preface by 
 
 Dumas fils. Paris : Levy, 1873. 1 vol. No. 204. 
 
 60. Faust. Flemish translation. By L. Vleeschouwer. Gent : 
 
 Hoste, 1842. 1 vol. No. 205. 
 
 61. Faust. Swedish translation by J. Andersson. Stockholm : 
 
 Meijer, 1853. 1 vol. No. 254. 
 
 62. Faust. Swedish translation by V. Rydberg. Stockholm : 
 
 Bonnier. 1 vol. No. 182. 
 
 63. Faust. Hungarian translation (1st part) by A. Komaromy. 
 
 Budapest : Aigner, 1887. No. 206. 
 
 64. Faust. 2nd part. Hungarian translation by Varadi. Budapest : 
 
 Hornyanszky, 1887. No. 207. 
 
188 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 65. F. A. Beck : Betrachtungen eines Schulmanns iib, Goethe's Faust, 
 
 Giessen : Hiller, 1871. No. 352. 
 
 66. M. Bergedorf: Faust und d. chrintliche Volksbewusstsein. Dres- 
 
 den : Grumbkow, 1881. No. 15a. 
 
 67. K. Biedermann : Zur Kntwicklungsgesch. d. Faust. Leipzig. 
 
 No. 82. 
 
 68. A. Birlinger and C. Binz : Augustin Lercheimer wid seine 
 
 Schrift wider den Hexenglauben. Strassburg : Heitz, 1888. 
 1 vol. No. 383. 
 
 69. F. Blancbet: Faust explique, dc. Paris : Dentu, 1860. No. 93. 
 
 70. W. G; Brill ; Faust, tweede gedeelte. Leiden : Brill, 1867. No. 92. 
 
 71. C. E. Cludius : D. Plan d. Faust. Bremen : Miiller, 1887. 
 
 No. 91. 
 
 72. W. Creizenacb : Versuch einer Geschichte des Volksachauspiels 
 
 vovi Doctor Faust, Halle : Niemeyer, 1878. 1 vol. No. 387. 
 
 73. W. Creizenacb : Die Biihnengeschichte des Goetheschen Faust. 
 
 Frankf.-o-M. : Riitten, 1881. 1 vol. No. 159. 
 
 74. F. Deycks : Goethe's Faust : Koblenz : Badecker, 1884. No. 106. 
 
 75. H. Diintzer: G's Faust in s, Finhcit und Ganzheit, Koln : 
 
 Eisen, 1836. 1 vol. No. 100. 
 
 76. H. Diintzer: Uber Faust, Leipzig : Dyk, 1861. No. 80. 
 
 77. Egmont : Uber Faust. Danzig : Axt, 1885. No. 85. 
 
 78. C. Engel : Vas Volksschampiel Dr. Joha^m Faust, (Introduc- 
 
 tion only.) Oldenburg : Schulze, 1874. 1 vol. No. 104. 
 
 79. M. Engelmann: Die vegetarische W eltansehauung in Goethe's 
 
 Faust, Breslau : Langmann, 1883. No. 83. 
 
 80. M. Enk: Briefe Uber Goethe's Faust. Wien : Beck, 1834. 
 
 1 vol. No. 302. 
 
 81. K. Fischer : Die Erkldrungsarten des Goetheschen Faust. 
 
 Heidelberg : Winter, 1890. 1 vol. No. 374. 
 
 82. C. Geiger: Die Walpurgisnacht im 1. Th d. Faust. Tubingen, 
 
 1882. No. 155. 
 
 83. Gorres : Die teutschen Volksbilcher. Heidelberg : Mohr, 1807. 
 
 1 vol. No. 301. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 189 
 
 84. C. F. Gcischel : HerokVs Stimme zu Goethe's Faust. Leipzig : 
 
 Lehnhold, 1831. No. 97. 
 
 85. A. Griin : Goethe's Faust. Gotha : Scheube, 1856. No. 78. 
 
 86. P. Haffner : Goethe's Faust als Wahrzeichen moderner Cultur. 
 
 Frankfurt : Foesser, 1880. No. 81. 
 
 87. K. Hagen ; Beziehu7igen v. Goethe's Faust z. d. Zeithestrehungen 
 
 i. 16 und 18. Jhd. Bern : Jent,1861. No. 158. 
 
 88. J. D. Hoffmann : Faust. ForUjesetzt von J. D. Hoffmann. 
 
 Leipzig : Lauffer, 1833. 1 vol. No. 274. 
 
 89. L. Honsse : Die Faustsage und der historische Faust. 
 
 Luxemburg : Briick, 1862. No. 151. 
 
 90. P. Kleinert : Augustin <& Goethe s Faust. Berlin : Wiegandt, 
 
 1866, 1 vol. No. 107. 
 
 91. W.Kyle: On the 2nd part of Faust. London: Triibner, 
 
 1870. No. 87. 
 
 92. E. Lasswitz : Goethe's Faust-Tragddle. Milwaukee : Dorflinger, 
 
 1877. No. 107. 
 
 93. M. Letteris : Vb. Ben Ahuja's Faustiiberzetzung. Leipzig : 
 
 Leiner, 1870. No. 84. 
 
 94. C. Loewe : Coiiimentar z. 2. Th. d. Faust. Berlin : Logier, 1834. 
 
 No. 98. 
 
 95. B. McLintock : The Faust Legend. Liverpool, 1887. No. 154. 
 
 96. C. Muff: Prometheus und Faust. Halle: Milhlmann, 1883. 
 
 No. 96. 
 
 97. H. Miiller : Frkldrung der Faust-Vorstellungen ^. Hannover. 
 
 Hanover : Helwing, 1877. No. 111. 
 
 98. J. Petzholdt : Zur Petcrschen Faustliteratur. Halle : Schmidt, 
 
 1851. No. 156. 
 
 99. M. Retzsch : Umrisse zu Goethe's Faust. [40 plates.] 
 
 Stuttgart and Tubingen : Cotta, 1837. 1vol. No. 15. 
 
 100. M. Rieger : Goethe's Faust nach s. religiljsen Gehalte. Heidel- 
 
 berg : Winter, 1881. No. 152. 
 
 101. J. Bossier : ErJduterungen zu Goethe's Faust. Berlin. No. 112. 
 
 102. Rose : Ud. d. scenische Darstellung des Goetheschen Faust und 
 
 Seydelmanns Aiifassung des Mephistop hides. Berlin : Duncker, 
 1838. No. 113. 
 
190 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 103. A. Schnetger : Der 2. Theil des Faust. Jena : Mauke, 1858, 
 
 No.. 90. 
 
 101. C. Schoebel : Uejnsode d'Homunculus. Paris : Challamel. 
 
 No. 79. 
 
 105. C. Schonborii : Z. Verstandujung lib. Goethe s Faust. Breelau : 
 
 Aderholz, 1838. No. 99. 
 
 106. F. H. Schonhuth: Des Erzschivarzkunstlers Dr. Joh. Faust 
 
 drtferliches Leben imd sclireckliches Ende. Reutlingen, 1872. 
 
 No. 102. 
 
 107. K. E. Schubarth : Uber Famt. Berlin : Enslin, 1830. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 101. 
 
 108. A. Schwartzkopff : Faust, Macbeth tirul Lear im Lichte des 
 
 Evangelii. Schonebeck : Berger, 1868. No. 86 
 
 109. K. Simrock : Dr. Johannes Faust. Puppenspiel. Frankf-o-M : 
 
 Bronner, 1846. No. 108. 
 
 110. F, Spielbagen : Fatist und 'Nathan. Berlin : Buncker, 1867. 
 
 No. 95. 
 
 111. P. Tube : D. Faustsage und d. religids-sittliche StandimnJd in 
 
 Goethe's Faust. Dresden : Naumann, 1869. No. 94. 
 
 112. Fr. Viscber. Goethe's Faust. Stuttgart : Bonz, 1875. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 12. 
 
 113. A. W. Ward. Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Greene's Friar Bacon 
 
 and Friar Bungay. Oxford : 1887. 1 vol. No. 10. 
 
 114. Wollheim. Erlduterungen und Gesdnge z. 2. Th. v. Goethe'' s 
 
 Faust. Hamburg : Lebmann, 1854. No. 110. 
 
 115. Anonymous. TJb. d Froloqzu Faust. Berlin : Diimmler, 1850. 
 
 No. 83. 
 
 116. Anonymous. Faust und Goethe. No. 105. 
 
 117. Anonymous. Faust. Rome : Forzani, 1883. No. 89. 
 
 118. Anonymous. Uber Goethe's Faust und dessen Fortsetzung. 
 
 Leipzig: Hartmann, 1824. 1 vol. No. 6. 
 
 2.— OTHER DRAMATIC WORKS. 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 119. Fgmont. Yon Goetbe. Leipzig : Goscben, 1788. 1 vol. No. 293. 
 
 120. Clavigo. Von Goetbe. Miineben, 1788. 1 vol. No. 327. 
 
 121. Iphigenie auf TaurU. Von Goetbe. Leipzig: Goscben, 1787. 
 
 1 vol. ^ No. 297. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 191 
 
 122. Torquato Tasso. Von Goethe. Leipzig : Goschen, 1816. 1 
 
 vol. No. 294. 
 
 123. Tancred. By Goethe. Tubingen : Cotta, 1802. 1vol. No. 317. 
 
 121. Die Geschwister. German text and French notes. Ed. by J. D. 
 Vitale. Leipzig : Baiimgartner, 1852. 1 vol. No. 309. 
 
 125. Die Vdyel von Goethe. (Reprint.) Ed. by W. Arndt. Leipzig: 
 
 Veit, 1886. 1 vol. No. dU. 
 
 126. Des Epimenides Erwachen. By Goethe. Ed. by G. v. Loeper. 
 
 Berlin: Hempel, 1871. 1vol. No. 311. 
 
 B. — Translations . 
 
 127. E(jmo7it. Dmiish trandation by Schorn, Copenhagen, 1818. 
 
 1 vol. No. 350. 
 
 128. Iphigenia in Taurls. Emjlish translation by G. L. Hartwig. 
 
 Berlin, &c. : Besser, 1841. 1 vol. No. 353. 
 
 129. Iphvjenie aiif Tauris. Greek translation by J. Papadopoulos. 
 
 Jena : Schreiber, 1818. 1 vol. No. 325. 
 
 130. Iphvjenie ajT. {Hungarian preface and German text,) No. 209. 
 
 131. Iphi(/enie. Hunt/arian translation hy Kis. Budapest: Franklin, 
 
 1877. 1 vol. No. 210. 
 
 132. Torquato Tasso, and miscellaneous p)oems by Schiller, Goethe and 
 
 Holty, English iranslatiojis by C. Des Voeux. Weimar, 
 1833. 1vol. No. 270. 
 
 133. Odysseus U7id Naiisikaa. Erganzt v. H. Viehoff. Diisseldorf : 
 
 Botticher, 1842. 1 vol. No. 296. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 1.— EGMONT. 
 
 134. H. K. Dippold. Geschichte des Grafen Egmont. Lpz. : Hinrichs, 
 
 1810. No. 244. 
 
 135. R. Noetel. Goethe's Eyinont. Cottbus : Jaeger, 1882. No. 185. 
 
 136. F. Nowicki. Goethe's Egmont. Rzeszow, 1880. No. 186. 
 
 2.— IPHIGENIE. 
 
 137. K.Fischer. Goethe s fyhigenie. Heidelb : Winter, 1890. No. 373. 
 
 138. A. Hagemann. Tphiyenie auf Tauris. Riga : Schnakenburg, 
 
 1883. No. 188. 
 
192 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 139. Herbst. Vber Iphigenie. Hamburg. No. 187. 
 
 140. Kieser. Entwicklumj d, dttUchen Conflicts in den 2 letzlen Auf- 
 
 zwien der Goethe' schen TpJm/enie. Sondershausen, 1848. 
 
 No. 191. 
 
 141. H. F. Miiller. Iphi(/enie. ihr. Verhdltniss z. (jriech, Tra«j(klie u. 
 
 zum Christenthum. Heilbroun : Henninger, 1882. No. 189. 
 
 142. F. T. Nolting. Ub. Goethe's Iphigenie, Wismar : Hinstorff, 
 
 1883. No. 192. 
 
 143. C. H. Pudor. Ub. Goethe's Iphif/enie. Marienwerder : Bau- 
 
 mann, 1832. No. 262. 
 
 144. M, Keckliiig. Goethe s Ipldtjenie a. T. nach d. 4 ubeiiieferten 
 
 Fassuufien, Colmar : Decker, 1884. No. 193. 
 
 145. E. Schwarz. Die Iphigenien-Sage und ihre dramatischen 
 
 Bearbeitungen. Lpz : Fleischer, 1869. No. 190. 
 
 3.— TASSO. 
 
 146. G.F.Eysell. UberTasso. Rinteln : Bosendahl, 1849. No. 197. 
 
 147. K. Fischer. Goethe's Tasso. Heidelbg : Winter, 1890. No. 375. 
 
 148. Kieser. Goethe's Tasso. Sondershausen, 1868. No. 191. 
 
 149. F. Lewitz. Uber Tasso. Konigsbg : Unzer. 1839. No. 196. 
 
 150. C. Tomlinson. A critical examination of Goethe's Tasso. Ld. : 
 
 Reveirs, 1890. No. 390. 
 
 151. Wittich. Zu Goethe's Tasso. Cassel, 1886. No. 195. 
 
 4.— VARIOUS. 
 
 152. Die wahre Geschichte des Clavigo. Hamburg: Herold, 1774. 
 
 1 vol. No. 337. 
 
 153. Die naturliche Tochter. Bearbeitung der Memoiren v. Stephanie 
 
 Louise de Bourbon-Conti. By F. Zirklaup. Meissen : 
 Klinkicht, 1835. 2 parts, in 1 vol. No. 129. 
 
 154. Parallele Charaktere und Zustlinde in Euripides Electra und 
 
 Goethe's natiXrlicher Tochter. By A. Neumeyer. Amberg, 1873. 
 
 No. 216. 
 
 155. Die Quellen und Anldsse einiger dramatischen Dichtungen Goetlies. 
 
 By W. V. Bieclermann. Leipzig : Teubner, 1860. No. 221. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 193 
 
 v.— Goethe's Romances. 
 
 l._WERTHER. 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 156. Leiden des jungen Werther. Von Goethe. Leipzig : Goschen, 
 
 1787. 1. vol. No. 292. 
 
 B. — Translations. 
 
 157. The Sorrows of Werter. English translation (Anon.). London : 
 
 Jones, 1809. 1 vol. No. 402. 
 
 158. The Sorrows of Werter. English translation by Pratt. London, 
 
 Edinburgh, and Dublin, 1813. 1 vol. No. 16. 
 
 169, The Sorrows of Werter. English translation {knon,), London: 
 Dean and Munday, 1815. 1 vol. No. 364. 
 
 160. The Sorrows of Werter. English translation (Anon.). London : 
 
 Blake, 1829. 1 vol. No. 363. 
 
 161. The Sorrows of Werter. English translation (Anon.). Belfast : 
 
 Smyth, 1844. 1 vol. No. 388. 
 
 162. Werther. French translation (Anon.). Basle : Decker, 1801. 
 
 1 vol. No. 393. 
 
 C— Treatises, Imitations, Parodies. 
 
 163. Letters from Wetzlar, written in 1814. By Major J. Bell. 
 
 London: Rodwell, 1821. 1vol. No. 399. 
 
 164. Aus. d. Messias und Wertherzeit. By H. M. Richter. Wien : 
 
 Rosner, 1882. No. 162 
 
 165. Goethe und die Wertherzeit. By K. Knortz. Zurich : 
 
 Schabelitz, 1885. 1 vol. No. 163. 
 
 166. Goethe's Werther und seine Zeit. By L. Wille. Basel : 
 
 Schwoighauser, 1877. No. 176. 
 
 167. Brief e an eine Freundin liber die Leiden des jungen Werther s. 
 
 Anon. Carlsruhe : Macklot, 1775. 1 vol. No. 332. 
 
 168. Freuden des jungen Werthers. Leiden und Freuden Werthers des 
 
 Mannes. ByNieolai. Berlin : Nicolai, 1775. 1vol. No. 298. 
 
 169. Die Leiden der juwjeji Wertherinn. Eisenach : Griesbach, 1775. 
 
 1 vol. No. 7. 
 
 170. Des jungen Werther' s Zuriif aun der EwigJceit, Anon. Carls- 
 
 ruhe : Maklott, 1775. 1 vol. No. 305. 
 
 O 
 
194 CATALOGUE OF LIBRAKY. 
 
 171. Lottens Gestdndnisse, in Bnefen vor und nach Weriher^s Tode, 
 
 Trier : GaU, 1825. 1 vol. No. 286. 
 
 172. Das Werther-Fiebei\ Anon. Nieder-Teutschland, 1776. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 276. 
 2.— WILHELM MEISTER. 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 173. Wilhehn Meister's Lehrjahre. By Goethe. 4. Band. Frankfurt 
 
 and Leipzig, 1796. 1 vol. No. 387. 
 
 B. — Translations. 
 
 174. Wilhelm Meister's Travels. Translated by T. Carlyle. Edinbnrgh 
 
 and London : Tait, 1827. No. 9. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 175. Uber Meister's Lehrjahre. By D. Jenisch. Berlin : LanghofF 
 
 1797. 1 vol. No. 260. 
 
 176. Goethe's Wander jahre und die wichtigsten Fragen des 19. Jahr- 
 
 hunderts. By A. Jung. Mainz : Kunze, 1854. 1. vol. No. 253. 
 
 177. TJh. Wilhelm Meister. By Wieck. Merseburg, 1837. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 351. 
 8.— OTHER WORKS. • 
 A. — ^Editions. 
 
 178. Die giiten Frauen von Goethe. (Reprint.) Heilbronn : Henniger. 
 
 1885. 1 vol. No. 313. 
 
 B. — Translations. 
 
 179. Goethe's Novel. English Translation. London : Moxon, 1837. 
 
 1 vol. No. 345. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 180. Minchen Herzlieb. By A. Hesse. Berlin : Habel, 1878. No. 198. 
 
 180a. Goethe's Minchen. By K. T. Gaedertz. Bremen : Miiller, 1887. 
 1vol. No. 51. 
 
 181. Goethe, d. Wahlverwandtschnften und Wilhelmine Herzlieb. By 
 
 F. K. M. No. 199. 
 
 182. Goethe's Wahlvcrwandtsehaften und d. sittliche Weltanschmmny 
 
 d. Dichters. By C. Semler. Hamb : Richter, 1887. No. 200. 
 
 183. Goethe's Dichtungen auf sittlichen Gehalt gepruft. By P. 
 
 Haffner. Frankf : Foesser, 1880. 1 vol. No. 201. 
 
 184. Goethe's Mdrchendichtungen. By Meyer v. Waldeck. Heidel- 
 
 berg : Winter, 1879. 1 vol. No. 252. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 195 
 
 VI.— Various Prose "Writings- 
 
 185. Positiones Juris. By Goethe. Strasburg : Heitz, 1771. 1 
 
 vol. No. 354. 
 
 186. Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigeii vom Jahre 1772 (Reprint). Edited 
 
 by W. Scherer and B. Seuffert. Heilbronn: Henninger, 1883. 
 2 vols. No. 58. 
 
 187. Goethe's Anted an Lavatefs physiognomischen Fragmenten. By 
 
 E. V. d. Hellen. Frankfurt : Riitten, 1888. 1 vol. No. 62. 
 
 188. Lehen des Benvenuto Cellini, Translated by Goethe. Tubingen : 
 
 Cotta, 1803. 1 vol. No. 166. 
 
 VIZ.— Goethe and Art. 
 
 A.—GOETHE'S WRITINGS ON ART. 
 
 189. Goethe's italidnische Beise und Aufsdtze und Aussprilche uber 
 
 hildende Kunst. Edited by C. Schuchardt. Stuttgart : Cotta, 
 1862. 2 vols. No. 29. 
 
 190. Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert. By Goethe, Wolf, and 
 
 Meyer. Wien : Strauss, 1811. 1 vol. No. 250. 
 
 B.— GOETHE'S RELATIONS TO ART. 
 
 191. Goethe, Quandt und d. sdchs. Kunstverein. By H. Uhde. 
 
 Stuttgart : Cotta, 1878. No. 124. 
 
 192. Goethe und der Sdchsische Kunstverein, By H. Uhde. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 342. 
 
 193. Gottfr. Schadoiv uh. einige in den Propylden abgedruckte Sdtze 
 
 Goethes. Dusseldorf : Buddeus, 1864. No. 220. 
 
 194. Zur Literatur des Kolner Dams. By F. Bloemer. Berlin : 
 
 Reimer, 1857. 1 vol. No. 211. 
 
 C— DRAWINGS BY GOETHE. 
 
 195. Zweiundzioanzig Handzeichnungen von Goethe. Edited by C. 
 
 Ruland. Weimar : Goethe- Gesellschaft, 1888. [One port- 
 folio, with 22 photogravures.] No. 66. 
 
 D.— ILLUSTRATIONS TO GOETHE'S WORKS AND LIFE. 
 
 196. Umrisse zu Goethe's Faust. ByM. Retzsch. [40 plates.] Stutt- 
 
 gart and Tlibingen : Cotta, 1837. 1 vol. No. 15. 
 
196 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 197. Umrisse zit Goethe's Werken, By J. Nissle. [92 engravings.] 
 
 Stuttgart : Becher. 1 vol. No. 275. 
 
 198. Gedenkhldtter an Goethe, [With 9 Lithogravures.] Frankfort- 
 
 o.-M : Kessler, 1846. 1 vol. No. 356. 
 
 199. Die Schdtze des Goethe-National-Museums. Edited by C. 
 
 Ruland. Weimar: Held, 1887. [1 portfolio, with 60 
 photogravures.] No. 66. 
 
 [$ee also IX.— Biography. 4 PORTRAITS.] 
 
 VIII.— Goethe's Scientific Writings. 
 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 200 Versiichdie Metamoiyhose der Pfianzen zu erkldren. Von Goethe 
 (1st Edition). Gotha : Ettinger, 1790. No. 57. 
 
 201. Zur vergleichenden Osteologie. Von Goethe. Mit Zusaetzen von 
 
 d' Alton. 1 vol. No. 343. 
 
 202. Goethes natunvissenschaftliche Corresioondenz. (1812-1832). 
 
 Edited by F. T. Bratranek. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1874. 
 2 vols. No. 175. 
 
 B. — Tkeatises. 
 
 203. Goethe und kein Ende. By E. Du Bois-Reymond. Leipzig r 
 
 Veit, 1883. No. 167. 
 
 204. Goethes Faust und die Grenzen des Naturerkennens. By A. v. 
 
 Berger. Wien : Gerold, 1883. No. 168. 
 
 205. Goethe als Naturforscher und H. Du Bois-Beymond als sein 
 
 Kntiker. By S. Kalischer. Berlin : Hempel, 1883. No. 169. 
 
 206. Goethe's Terhalt7iiss zu den organ. Naturivissenschaften. By 
 
 0. Schmidt. Berlin : Hertz, 1853. No. 170. 
 
 207. Vb. Goethe s Farbenlehre. By E. Lange. Berlin: Hoffschlager, 
 
 1882. 1 vol. No. 171. 
 
 208. Goethe's Yerhdltniss zur Natuncissenschaft. By S. Kalischer. 
 
 Berlin : Hempel, 1877. No. 172. 
 
 209. Goethe als Naturforscher und in bes. Bez. a. Schiller. By R. 
 
 Yirchow. Berlin : Hirschwald, 1861. No. 173. 
 
 210. Goethe als Xaturf. in Bez. z. Gegemvart. By K. H. Meding. 
 
 Dresden : Adler, 1861. 1 vol. No. 174. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 197 
 
 IX.— Croethe Biography. 
 
 l._GOETHE'S BIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS. 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 211. Goethe's italidnische Reise und Aufsdtze und Ausspriiche uher 
 
 bildende Kunst. Edited by C. Schuchardt. Stuttgart : Cotta, 
 1862. 2 vols. No. 29. 
 
 212. Tagebiicher und Brief e Goethes aus Italien an Frau v. Stein und 
 
 Herder. Weimar : Goethe- Gesellschaft, 1886. 1 vol. No. 20. 
 
 213. Zur Nachgeschichte der italienischen Reise. Goethe's Brief nachsel 
 
 mil Freunden und Ku7istgenossen in Italien. 1788-90. Ed. 
 by 0. Harnack. Weimar : G.G. 1890. 1 vol. No. 326. 
 
 B. — Translations. 
 
 214. Memoires de Goethe. French translation by Porchat. Paris: 
 
 Hachette, 1862. 1vol. No. 248. 
 
 215. Autobiography of Goethe. Italian translation by A. Courtheaux. 
 
 Milan : Sonzogno, 1886. 1 vol. No. 826. 
 
 C. — Treatises. 
 
 216. Goethe und s. ital. Reise. By C. Meyer. Hamburg : Richter, 1886. 
 
 No. 177. 
 
 217. Goethe's ital. Reise, By L. Hirzel. Basel : Scbweighauser, 
 
 1871. No. 178. 
 
 2.— GOETHE'S LETTERS. 
 A. — Editions. 
 
 218. Goethe's Werke. Herausgeg. i. A. d. Grossh. Sophie v. Sachsen, 
 
 IV. Abth : Brief e. 1—12. Bd. 1764-1797. Weimar : Bohlau, 
 1881-1893. 12 vols, (to be continued). No. 17d. 
 
 219. Briefwechsel ziiischen Carl August und Goethe. Vienna : Brau- 
 
 miiller, 1873. Two parts in 1 vol. No. 18. 
 
 220. Briefwechsel zw. Goethe und Gottling. By K. Fischer. 
 
 Mlinchen : Bassermann, 1880. No. 246. 
 
 221. Goethe's Briefwechsel wit den Gehrudern von Humboldt. Edited 
 
 by F. T. Bratranek. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1876. 1vol. No. 42. 
 
 222. Briefwechsel zw. Goethe u. F. H. Jacobi. Edited by M. Jacobi. 
 
 Leipzig : Weidmann, 1846. 1 vol. No. 37. 
 
 223. Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Knebel. Edited by G. E. 
 
 Guhrauer. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1851. Two parts in 1 vol. 
 
 No. 31. 
 
198 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 224. Brief e von Goethe an Lavater. Edited by H. Hirzel. Leipzig : 
 
 Weidmann, 1883. No. 25. 
 
 225. Brief e Goethe's an Sophie von La Roche und Bettina Brentano. 
 
 Edited by G. v. Loeper. Berlin: Hertz, 1879. 1 vol. No. 34. 
 
 226. Goethe's Brief wechsel mit Friedrich Rochlitz, Edited by W. v. 
 
 Biedermann. Leipzig : Biedermann, 1837. 1 vol. No. 368. 
 
 227. Brief e Goethe's und Schiller's an A. W, Schler/el, Leipzig : Weid- 
 
 mann, 1846. 1 vol. No. 247. 
 
 228. BriefwecJisel zwischen Schiller und Goethe, 1794-1800, 3. 
 
 Ausgabe. Stuttgart : Cotta, 1870. 2 vols. No. 21. 
 
 229. Goethe's Brief e an Frau von Stein. Edited by A. SchoU and W. 
 
 Fielitz. 2. Auflage. Frankfort-o-M. Kiitten, 1883. 2 vols. 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 230. Goethe's Brief e an Voigt. Edited by 0. Jahn. Leipzig : Hirzel, 
 
 1868. No. 27. 
 
 231. Briefweclisel zwischen Goethe und Marianne von Willemer, Edited 
 
 by T. Creizenach. Stuttgart : Cotta, 1877. 1 vol. No. 43. 
 
 232. Goethe's Brief e an F. A. Wolf. Edited by M. Bernays. Berlin : 
 
 Eeimer, 1868. 1 vol. No. 46. 
 
 283. Brief wechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter. Edited by F. W. 
 Riemer. Berlin : Duncker, 1833-4. Six parts in 3 vols. No. 35. 
 
 234. Goethe's naturwissenschaftliche Correspondenz. (1812-1832.) 
 
 Edited by F. T. Bratranek. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1874. 
 2 vols. No. 175. 
 
 235. Zur Nachgeschichte der italienischen Beise. Goethe's Briefwecbsel 
 
 mit Freunden und Kunstgenossen in Italien, 1788-1790. 
 Edited by 0. Harnack. Weimar : Goethe-Ges. 1890. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 386. 
 
 236. Brief e von und an Goethe. Edited by F. W. Biemer. Leipzig : 
 
 Weidmann, 1846. 1 vol. No. 39. 
 
 287. Goethe's Brief e an Leipziger Freunde. Edited by 0. Jahn. Leipzig : 
 Breitkopf, 1849. 1 vol. No. 38. 
 
 238. JJngedruckte Brief e v. Schiller, Goethe und Wieland. Herausg. v. 
 
 Bilkow. Breslau : Aderholz, 1845. 1 vol. No. 304. 
 
 239, Brief e von Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Kant, Bdttiger, Dyh und 
 
 Falk an Karl Morgenstern. Edited by F. Siutenis. Dorpat : 
 Glaser. 1875. 1 vol. No. 310. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 199 
 
 240. Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde. 3. Auflage. Edited by H. 
 
 Grimm. Berlin: Hertz, 1881. 1 vol. No. 262. 
 
 B. — ^Treatises. 
 
 241. Zum Goethe- Schillerschen Briefwechsel. By Hesse. Dresden: 
 
 Heinrich, 1886. No. 214. 
 
 242. Schiller und Goethe [zum Briefwechsel), by H. Diintzer. 
 
 Stuttgart: Cotta, 1859. No. 28. 
 
 C. — Translations. 
 
 243. Correspondance entre Goethe et Schiller. French translation by 
 
 Mme. de Carlowitz. Notes by Taillandier. Paris : Charpentier, 
 1863. 1 vol. No. 231. 
 
 3.— GOETHE'S CONVERSATIONS. 
 ' A. — Editions. 
 
 244. Goethe's Gesp'ache Edited by W. v. Biedermann. Leipzig: 
 
 Biedermann, 1889-1891. 9 vols. No. 358. 
 
 245. Gesprdche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lehens. By 
 
 J. P. Eckermann. 5. Auflage. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1883. 
 3 parts, in 1 vol. No. 40. 
 
 246. Goethe aus ndherm personlichen Umgange dargestellt. By J. 
 
 Falk. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1856. 1 vol. No. 145. 
 
 247. Goethe's Unterhaltungen mit.d. Kanzler F. v. Muller. Edited by 
 
 C. A. H. Burkhardt. Stuttgart : Cotta, 1870. 1 vol. No. 183. 
 
 248. Mittheilungen iiber Goethe. By W. F. Riemer. Berlin: 
 
 Duncker, 1841. 2 vols. No. 24. 
 
 B. — ^Translations. 
 
 249. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret. English 
 
 Translation, by J. Oxenford. Revised edition. Loudon: 
 Bell, 1883. 1 vol. No. 365. 
 
 4.— PORTRAITS. 
 
 250. Die Goethe- Bildnisse. [Cont. 78 woodcuts, 8 etchings, and 2 
 
 heliogravures.] By H. Rollett. Wien : Braumiiller, 1883. 
 1 vol. No. 130. 
 
 251. Kurzgefasstes Verzeichniss der Originalaufnahmen von Goethe's 
 
 Bildniss. By F. Zarncke. Leipzig : Hirzel, 1888. [15 
 plates.] 1 vol. No. 366. 
 
200 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 6.— GOETHE BIOGRAPHIES BY OTHERS. 
 A. — General. 
 
 252. Life of Goethe. By H. Diintzer. Translated by Lyster. 
 
 London : Macmillan, 1883. 2 vols. No. 8. 
 
 253. The Life of Goethe. By G. H. Lewes. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 
 
 1882. 1 vol. No. 61. 
 
 254. Goetlie's Leben, By H. Viehoff. Stuttgart : Becher, 1847. 3 
 
 vols. No. 261. 
 
 255. Goethe. {Vorleswujen.) By H. Grimm. Berlin : Hertz, 1887. 
 
 Two parts in 1 vol. No. 30. 
 
 256. A. Mezieres : W. Goethe, les oeiivres expliqiiees par la vie. Paris : 
 
 Didier, 1872. 1 vol. No. 64. 
 
 257. Goethe's Biographie. By DoeriDg. Jena : Doebereiner. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 307. 
 
 258. Biography of Goethe, By T. Be Quincey. Edinburgh : 
 
 Black, 1863. 1 vol. No. 408. 
 
 B. — Special. 
 
 259. Goethe's Jtigend. By J. Scheir. Leipzig : Keil, 1874. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 44. 
 
 260. Goethe unci Leipzig. By W. v. Biedermann. Leipzig: Brock- 
 
 haus, 1865. 1 vol. No. 377. 
 
 261. Friederike Brion von Sessenheini, By P. F. Lucius. 2 Aufl. 
 
 Strassburg and Stuttgart : Heitz, 1878. 1 vol. No. 870. 
 
 261a. Fridenhe v. Sesenheim, By J, Froitzheim. Gotha: Perthes, 
 1898. 
 
 262. Goethe zu Strassburg. By J. Leyser. Neustadt-a-H. : Gottschick, 
 
 1871. 1 vol. No. 41. 
 
 268. Lenz, Goethe und Cleophe Fibich von Strassburg. Zu Strassburgs 
 Sturm- und Drangperiode. By J. Froitzheim. Strassburg : 
 Heitz, 1888. Two parts in 1 vol. No. 623. 
 
 264. Gothe und Charlotte Kestner. By Falkson. Konigsberg : 
 
 Beyer, 1869. 1 vol. ' No. 331. 
 
 265. Goethe und Lavater. By R. Steck. Basel : Schweighauser, 
 
 1884. 1 vol. No. 230. 
 
 266. Goethe in den Jahren 1771 bis 1775. By B. R. Abeken. 
 
 Hanover : Riimpler, 1861. No. 290. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 201 
 
 267. Goethe und Frau v. Stein. By E. Adier. Leipzig : Toeplitz, 
 
 1887. No. 120. 
 
 268. Goethe und d. Fiirst v. Dessau. By A. Frankel. Sonder- 
 
 shausen : Neuse. No. 123. 
 
 269. Goethe, Weimar und Jena, i. J. 1806. By R. and R. Keil. 
 
 Leipzig : Schloemp, 1882. No. 131. 
 
 270. Goethe s Minchen. By K. T. Gaedertz. Bremen : Miiller, 
 
 1887. 1 vol. No. 51. 
 
 271 Bettina von Arnim. By M. Carriere. Breslau : Schott. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 121. 
 
 272. Goethe und Schwan in Tdplitz, 1813. By Grosse. Weimar : 
 
 Klihn, 1859. 1 vol. No. 356. 
 
 273. Goethe's Verehrimg der Kaiserin v. Oesterreich. By H. 
 
 Diintzer. K5ln : Ahn, 1885. No. 122. 
 
 274. Goethe und Quetelet. By W. Strieker. Frankfort-on-M. : 1886. 
 
 No. 118. 
 
 274a. Damon unil Welt im Werden Goethes. By L. Hacker, 
 
 Erlangen : Deichert, 1878. No. 119. 
 
 275. Zivei Polen in Weimnr (1829). By F. T. Bratranek. Wien : 
 
 Gerold, 1870. 1 vol. No. 306. 
 
 276. Goethe und Karl Aiif/mt auf d. Oybin. By A. Moschkau. 
 
 Leipzig : Senf, 1879^ No. 125. 
 
 277. Goethe's Beziehungen zu s. Vaterstadt. Anon. Frankfort : AufFarth, 
 
 1862. No. 126. 
 
 278. Goethe in Dornhurg. By K. A. C. Sckell. Jena : Oostenoble, 
 
 1864. 1 vol. No. 127. 
 
 278a. Goethe und Berlin, By Bralim. Berlin : Weidmann, 1880. 
 1 vol. No. 133. 
 
 279. Goethe in Karlsbad, By E. Hlawacek. Karlsbad : Feller, 
 
 1877. No. 132. 
 
 280. Aus Goethe's Leben. By W. Ludecus. Leipzig : Hartung, 1849. 
 
 1 vol. No. 266. 
 
 281. Goethe's Selbstcharakteristik. By H. Boring. Altenburg : 
 
 Pierer, 1847. 1 vol. No. 285. 
 
 282. Goethe's Studentenjahre. Anon. Leipzig, 1846. Kossling. 
 
 2 vols. No. 249. 
 
202 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 283. Goethe ah Student in Leipzig. By L Blume. Jahresbericht d. 
 
 akad. Gymn : Wien, 1884. 1 vol. No. 341. 
 
 284. Goethe und sein Liebeleben, By H. E. N. Belani. Leipzig: 
 
 Schmidt, 1866. 1 vol. No. 161. 
 
 285. De7' Roman eines Dichterlehens. (Goethe's Jugendjahre, 
 
 Mannerjahre, Greisenalter,) By K. T. Zianitzka. Leipzig : 
 Kollmann, 1863. 7 vols. No. 184. 
 
 [See also the following heading. ''\ 
 
 6.— GOETHE'S CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 286. Anna Amalia von Weimar. By G. B. Springer. I. Band, Berlin : 
 
 Janke. No. 289. 
 
 287. Bettina von Amim. By M. Carriere. Breslau : Schott. 
 
 No. 121. 
 
 288. Literarische Zustdnde und Zeitgenossen. By K. A. Bottiger. 
 
 Edited by K. W. Bottiger. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1838. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 382. 
 
 289. Friederike Brion. See 261, 261a. 
 
 290. Vh. die Verhdltnisse d. Buchhandl. Brockhaus zu Br. EcJcermann. 
 
 Leipzig, 1846. 1 vol. No. 803. 
 
 291. Brief e von Ooethe's Frau an Nicolaus Meyer. Strassburg : 
 
 Triibner, 1887. 1 vol. No. 55. 
 
 292. Briefe von Goethe's Mutter an ihren Sohn, Christiane und August v. 
 
 Goethe. Weimar: Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1889. 1 vol. No. 267. 
 
 293. Briefe von Goethe's Mutter an die Herzogin Anna Amalia. Edited 
 
 by C. A. H. Burkhardt. Weimar : Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1885. 
 1 vol. No. 19. 
 
 294. Charlotte von Kalb. By E. Kopke. Berlin: Hertz, 1852. 
 
 1 vol. No. 281. 
 
 295. Charlotte {von Kalb). By E. Palleske. Stuttg : Kiabbe, 1879. 
 
 1 vol. No. 238. 
 
 296. Philemon. Aufzelchnungen d. Frl. v. Klettenberg. Edited by F. 
 
 Delitzsch. Gotha : Schloessmann, 1878. 1 vol. No. 278. 
 
 297. Reliquien d. Frl. v. Klettenberg. By J. M. Lappenberg. 
 
 Hamburg : Rauhes Haus, 1849. 1 vol. No. 279. 
 
 298. Karl Ludwig von Knebel. By Hugo v. Knebel-Doeberitz. 
 
 Weimar : BGhlau, 1890. 1 vol. No. 400. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 203 
 
 298a. /i. L. von Knebel's literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel. 
 Edited by Varnh. v. Ense and T. Mundt. Leipzig : Reichenbach, 
 1846. 3 vols. No. 408. 
 
 299. Drajnatischer Nachlass von J. 21. R. Lenz. By K. Weinbold. 
 
 Frankfurt : Rutten, 1884. 1 vol. No. 379. 
 
 300. Brief e an und von Johann Heinrich Merck. Edited by K. 
 
 Wagner. Darmstadt : Diehl, 1838. 1 vol. No. 376. 
 
 301. Garlieb Merckel itber Deutschland zur Schiller-Goethe- Zeit Ed. 
 
 by Julius Eckardt. Berlin : Paetel, 1877. 1 vol. No. 54. 
 
 302. Travels, chiefly on foot, through several jMrts of England in 1782. 
 
 By Charles T. Moritz. Translated by a Lady. 2nd ed. 
 London : Robinson. 1797. 1 vol. No. 360. 
 
 303. Vher die bildende Nachahmung des Schdnen. By K. P. Moritz 
 
 (Braunschweig, 1788). Ed. by S. Auerbach. Stuttgart : 
 Goschen, 1888. 1 vol. No. 398. 
 
 304. Sophie de la Roche. By A. Nefftzer. Ex Revue Germanique. 
 
 31st May, 1868. 1 vol. No. 308. 
 
 305. Karl RucJcstuhl. By L. Hirzel. Strassb : Triibner, 1876. 
 
 No. 248. 
 
 306. Schiller's Bnefwechsel mit Korner. 2. Ausgabe. Leipzig : Veit, 
 
 1859. 4 vols. No. 5. 
 
 307. The Life of Schiller. By H. Diintzer. Transl. by P. E. 
 
 Pinkerton. London : Macmillan, 1883. 1 vol. No. 367. 
 
 308. Seydelmann. By A. Lewald. Stuttgart : Gopel, 1841. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 330. 
 
 309. Die Bruder Senclcenherg. By G. L. Kriegk. Frankf.-o-M: 
 
 Sauerlander, 1869. 1 vol. No. 150. 
 
 310. H. L. Wagner. By E. Schmidt. Jena : Frommann, 1875. 
 
 No. 239. 
 
 310a. F. L. Z. Werner. By A. Hagen. Konigsb : 1868. 1 vol. 
 
 ^ No. 241. 
 
 310b. Das Verhdltniss Wolfs und W. v. Humboldt's zu Goethe und 
 Schiller. By G. Lothholz. Wernigerode: Angerstein, 1863. 
 
 No. 215. 
 
 311. Semiramis. Anon. Frankfort-o.M. : Schmerder. 1836. 1vol. 
 
 No. 339. 
 
 312. Frauenbilder aus Goethe s Jugendzeit. By H. Diintzer. 
 
 Stuttgart : Cotta, 1852. 1 vol. No. 165. 
 
204 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 818. 12 Frmienbilder cms der Goethe-Schiller-Fpoche. By A. 
 Schloenbach. Hanover : Riimpler, 1856. 1 vol. No. 299. 
 
 814. Weimar's Musenhof 1772-1807. By W. Wachsmuth. Berlin: 
 Duncker, 1844. 1 vol. No. 255. 
 
 316. Die MassiscJien Stdtten von Jena und Ilmenaii. By R. Springer. 
 
 Berlin : Springer, 1869. 1 vol. No. 269. 
 
 816. Weimarische Theaterhilder aus Goethe's Zeit. By W. G. 
 Gotthardi. Jena: Costenoble, 1865. 2 parts in 1 vol. 
 
 No. 300. 
 
 317. Wdmars Genius. (Biography of Carl August and Poems.) 
 
 By G. Treumund. Weimar : Kiihn, 1857. 1 vol. No. 346. 
 
 318. Weimarische Blatter. By F. Peucer. Leipzig: Hartmann, 
 
 1884. 1 vol. No. 258. 
 
 319. Briefe eines Keisenden Franzosen uher Deutschland. By 
 
 H. R(ibbeck), 1784. 1 vol. No. 367. 
 
 320. Das Journal van Tiefiirt. Edited by E. v. d. Hellen. Pref. by B. 
 
 Suphan. Weimar : Goethe-Ges., 1892. 1 vol. No. 407. 
 
 321. Friedrich des Grossen Schrift uher die Deutsche Liter atur. By B. 
 
 Suphan. Berlin : Hertz, 1888. 1 vol. No. 371. 
 
 322. Letters from Continental Countries. By G. Downes. Dublin : 
 
 Curry. London : Simpkins, 1832. 2 vols. No. 404. 
 
 X.— Goethe Considered from Various Points of 
 View. 
 
 323a. Goethe in amtlichen Verhdltnissen. By C. Vogel. Jena : From- 
 mann, 1834. 1 vol. No. 263a. 
 
 323b. Goethe und einer seiner Bewundrer. By F. de la Motte Fouque. 
 Berlin: Duncker, 1840. 1 vol. No. 263. 
 
 324. Das Wehnarer Ho/theater unter Goethes Leitung. Edited by J. 
 
 Wahle. Weimar : Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1892. 1 vol. No. 406. 
 
 325. Goethe's Theaterleitumj in Weimar. By E. Pasque. Leipzig : 
 
 Weber, 1863. 1 vol. No. 372. 
 
 326. Goethe als Jurist. By J. Meisner. Berlin : Kortkampf, 1886. 
 
 No. 224. 
 
 327. TJb. Goethe. By Uwarow. St. Petersburg: Akademie, 1833. 
 
 1 vol. No. 225. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 205 
 
 328. Goethe ah Pddatjog. By A. Langguth. Halle : Niemeyer, 1887. 
 
 1 vol. No. 50. 
 
 329. Goethe's politische Ansicht und Stellung. Elberfeld : Badecker, 
 
 1852. 1 vol. No. 116. 
 
 330. Goethe's deutsche Gesinnuwj. By G. Winter. Leipzig : Eossberg, 
 
 1880. No. 179. 
 
 331. Despotismus und Volkskraft, By F. Cramer. Berlin : Liideritz, 
 
 1874. No. 180. 
 
 332. Goethe ah Arbeiter. By M. Miiller. Pforzheim : 1865. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 181. 
 
 333. Freymauyer-Analecten, {Goethe's Trauerlotje.) Weimar: 1832. 
 
 1vol. No. 312. 
 
 334. Goethe ah Mensch imd Schriftsteller. By F. Glover. Braun- 
 
 schweig : Waisenhau3, 1823. 1 vol. No. 268. 
 
 335. Goethe in Heines Werken. By Robert-tornow. Berlin : Haude, 
 
 1883. No. 229. 
 
 336. Ueber den Charakter des Menschen und menschliche Grdsse. By 
 
 M. Miiller. Frankfurt : Gebhard, 1859. 1 vol. No. 348. 
 
 337. Goethe und Religion. By L. v. Lancizolle. Berlin : Nicolai, 1855. 
 
 No. 70. 
 
 338. Goethe's Godsdienst. By C. W. Opzoomer. Amsterdam : Geb- 
 
 hard, 1868. No. 71. 
 
 339. Goethe's Verhdltniss zureligibsen Fmgen. By J. Bayer. Prag : 
 
 Mercy, 1869. No. 72. 
 
 340. Das Buch Hiob und Goethe's Faust. KuUurkampf und Kampf 
 
 urns Dasein, By L. Adler. Cassel : Kunig, 1876. No. 73. 
 
 341. Goethe und das alte Testament. By B. Ziemlich. Niirnberg : 
 
 Korn, 1883. No. 74. 
 
 342. Der biblische und der Goethesche Faust. By J. Hollander. Trier : 
 
 Stephanus, 1881. No. 75. 
 
 343. Goethe s Stellung zur Religion. By E. Fertsch. Langensalza : 
 
 Beyer, 1879. No. 76. 
 
 344. Goethe's Selbstzeugnisse iib. seine Stellung zur Religion und zu 
 
 religids-Jdrchlichen Fragen. By T. Vogel. Leipzig : Triibner, 
 1888. 1 vol. No. 77. 
 
 344a. Goethe in America. ByK. Knortz. Zurich : Schabelitz, 1885. 
 1 vol. No. 163. 
 
206 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 XI.— General Goethe Iiiterature. 
 
 845. Goethe- J ahrhiich. Edited by L. Geiger. 1-14, Bd. (1880- 
 
 1893). Frankf : Rutten, 14 vols. No. 14. 
 
 846. Ptiblications of the English Goethe Society. Vol. 1-6. London: 
 
 Nutt, 1886,* 1887, 1888, 1890, 1891. No. 64, 67-69, 395-6. 
 
 847. ChroniJc des Wiener Goetlte-Vereins. 1887-1893. 2 vols. No. 65. 
 
 848. Salomon Hirzels Verzeichniss einer Goethe- BibliotheJc. Ijeipzig : 
 
 Hirzel, 1884. 1 vol. No. 59. 
 
 849. Vol. 180. Uhersicht v. Schriften von und iib. Goethe. By L. v. 
 
 Lancizolle. Berlin : Nicolai, 1857. No. 233. 
 
 850. Chronologie d. Entstehung Goethesclier Schriften. Miinchen : 
 
 Unflad, 1878. No. 234. 
 
 851. D. Goethe-Literatur i. Deutschland, By L. Unflad. Munchen : 
 
 1878. 1vol. No. 235. 
 
 852. Die Goethe-Schiller - Lessing - Herder - und - Wieland- Liter atur in 
 
 Deutschland {1750-1851). Cassel : Balde, 1853. No. 286. 
 
 853. Goethe-Tqfel. Berlin: Bach, 1850. 1 vol. No. 237. 
 
 XZI. — Critical and Philological "Writings on 
 Goethe's Works. 
 
 354. Goethe. (Vorlesungen.) By H. Grimm. Berlin: Hertz, 1877. 
 
 Two parts in 1 vol. No. 30. 
 
 355. Goethe-Forschungen. By W. Fr. v. Biedermann. Frankfort : 
 
 Rutten, 1879. 1 vol. No. 36. 
 
 356. Goethe-Forschungen. Neue Folge. By W. Fr. v. Biedermann. 
 
 Leipzig : Biedermann, 1886. 1 vol. No. 36. 
 
 357. Goethe und seine WerJce. By Karl Rosenkranz. Konigsberg : 
 
 Bomtrager, 1847. 1 vol. No. 256. 
 
 358. Goethestudien (Wertherzeit, Reisetagebuch, G'sche Verse in Wallen^ 
 
 steins Lager). By W. Fielitz. Wittenberg, 1881. No. 212. 
 
 359. Aus Goethes Fruhzeit. By W. Scherer, J. Minor, M. Posner, E. 
 
 Schmidt. Strassburg : Triibner, 1879. 1 vol. No. 63. 
 
 360. Aufsdtze uber Goethe. By W. Scherer. Berlin : Weidmann, 1886. 
 
 1 vol. No. 13. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 20? 
 
 361. Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe, By E. Schmidt. Jena: 
 Frommann, 1875. 1 vol. No. 380. 
 
 3G2. CharaUeristihen, By Erich Schmidt. Berlin : Weidmann, 1886. 
 [Frau Kath Goethe, Friederike, 0. ferul, Wertherzeit, Frau v. 
 Stein, Marianne-Suleika, Frommann, &c.] 1 vol. No. 378. 
 
 363. D. Entwicklumj d. Goetheschen Poesie his zur itaJ. Reise. By L. 
 
 Breitenbach. Berlin : Weidmann, 1870. 1 vol. No. 315. 
 
 364. Goethe in der Epoche seiner Vollendung. By 0. Ilarnack, 
 
 Leipzig: Hinrichsen, 1887. 1vol. No. 33, 
 
 365. Gedanken ilher Goethe. By V. Hehn. Berlin : Borntraeger, 
 
 1888. 1 vol. No. 49. 
 
 366. Etude sur les poesies lyriques de Goethe. By E. Lichtenberger, 
 
 Paris : Hachette, 1877. 1 vol. No. 202. 
 
 367. Goethe und Homer. By Liicke. Nordhausen : Kirchner, 1884. 
 
 No. 213. 
 
 368. Goethe und Calderon. By E. Dorer. Leipzig : Friederich, 
 
 1881. No. 226. 
 
 369. Das gcmuthliche ^aturgefuhl der Deutschen und s. Behandlung im 
 
 Liebesliede m. bes. Bez, a, Goethe. By A. Koberstein. 
 Naumburg : 1840. No. 227. 
 
 370. Dante d Goethe. By D. Stern. Paris : Didier, 1866. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 160. 
 
 371. IJber Kritik und Geschichte des Goetheschen Textes. By M. 
 
 Bernays. Berlin : Diimmler, 1866. No. 222. 
 
 372. Ztt Goethe's Leben und WerJcen, By W. Strieker. Leipzig : 
 
 Hirzel, 1880. No. 223. 
 
 373. Studien zur Goethe-Philologie. By J. Minor and A. Sauer. 
 
 Wien : Konegen, 1880. 1 vol. No. 128. 
 
 374. Pber Goethe's Sp-ache & ihren Geist. By J. A. Lehmann. 
 
 Marienwerder : Harich, 1849. No. 217. 
 
 374a. Die Sprache des jungen Goethe. By Dr. Bnrdach. Leipzig, 
 1885. 
 
 375. Das Goethesche Gleichnis. ByH. Henkel. Halle: Waisenhaus, 
 
 1886. 1 vol. No. 144. 
 
 376. Etudes sur Goethe. By X. Marmier. Paris : Levrault, 1835. 
 
 1 vol. No. 257. 
 
iOB 
 
 CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 
 
 877. Essays on Goethe. By T. Carlyle. London: Cassell, 1888. 
 
 1 vol. No. 245. 
 
 878. Goethe und sein Jahrhundert, Jena: Bran, 1835. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 838. 
 
 879. Goethe's Frauen, By M. Kurnik. Breslau : Kern, 1849. 
 
 1 vol. No. 143. 
 
 880. Ahlmndlungen ilber Goethe^ Schillei', Burger und einige ihrer 
 
 Freunde. By H. Prohle. Potsdam, 1889. 1vol. No. 401. 
 
 880a. Studien zu Homer, SophoJclesj Euripides^ Fiacine und Goethe. 
 By P. Mayer. Gera : Kanitz, 1874. 1 vol. No. 117. 
 
 881. Uher den funffilssigen J ambus mit hesonderer Rucksicht auf seine 
 
 Behandlung durch Lessing, Schiller und Goethe. By F. 
 Zarncke. Leipzig : Edelmann, 1865. 1 vol. No. 369. 
 
 882. Reviews about Goethe's works from Critical Review (1794), 
 
 Edinburgh Review (1825), Foreign Quarterly Review (1834). 
 1 vol. No. 706. 
 
 883. Reviews on Goethe's works and other German literature from the 
 
 Monthly Review (1790, 1793, 1797, 1798), British Critic 
 (1801), Blackwood's (1820, 1826), Quarterly Review (1826, 
 1843), Taifs (1832), National Review (1855), and V. Felszum 
 Meer (1882). 1 vol. No. 397. 
 
 884. Specimens of the Table Talk of Coleridge. London : Murray, 
 
 1836. 1 vol. No. 329. 
 
 385. Aesthetik. By Hegel. Berlin : Duncker, 1843. 1 vol. No. 338. 
 
 XZII.— Goethe Festivals. 
 
 386, Antrag von Hotho, Hude und Grimm, i. Goethe -comite Berlin: 
 Schade, 1862. 
 
 887. Goethe's lOOjdhr. Geburtstag. Berlin, 1849. 
 
 387a. Die Feier des Goethetages. Frankfort-o-M. : Fr. D. Hoehstift, 
 1880. 
 
 388. Die Goethe-Stiftimg. Antr. v. A. Diesterweg. Essen : Badecker, 
 1849. 
 
 889. Die Goethestiftung und die Goetheschen Preisaufgaben. By C. 
 Schuchardt. Weimar : Bohlau, 1861. 
 
CATALOGUE OF LIBRARY. 209 
 
 390. De la Fondation- Goethe a Weimar. By F. Liszt. Leipzig : 
 
 Brockhaus, 1854. 
 
 391. Zu Goethe's himdertdreissigstem Gehurtstag, By E. W. Sabell. 
 
 Heilbronn : Henninger, 1879. 
 
 392. Die Neugriindung der Strassburger Bihliothek und die Goethe- 
 
 Feier am 9. Aug. 1871. Strassburg : Schmidt, 1871. 
 
 393. Das GoetJie-Denkmal in Franhfurt-a-M. Frankfort-o-M. : 
 
 Sauerlander, 1844. 1 vol. No. 134. 
 
 394. Goethe's Todtenfeier, Berlin, 1882. Berlin; Cosmar, 1832. 
 
 1 vol. Ko. 318. 
 
 395. Freymaurer-Analecten. [Goethe's Trauerloge.) Weimar: 1832. 
 
 1 vol. No. 312. 
 
 XIV.— Poems about Goethe. 
 
 396. Furst und Dichter. (Drama.) By Deinhardstein. 1 vol. No. 355. 
 
 397. Aus Goethe's lustigen Tagen. Comedy by E. Henle. Stuttgart : 
 
 Levi, 1878. 1 vol. No. 323. 
 
 398. Goethe in Strassburg und Sesenheim. Poem by M. Horn. 
 
 Kassel : Jungklaus, 1875. 1 vol. ' No. 322. 
 
 399. Santa Casa. Novelle ans Goethe's Jugendzeit. By A. Lacy. 
 
 Mainz : Kunze, 1853. 2 vols. No. 328. 
 
 400. Goethe-Tasso. Drama by C. A. Milller. Jena: Dcibereiuer, 
 
 1853. 1 vol. No. 320. 
 
 401. Goethelieder. By various Poets. Edited by E. Ortlepp. Dim: 
 
 Ebner, 1843. 1 vol. No. 232. 
 
 402. Goethe. Poems by M. Rappaport. Wien : Ghelen, 1832. 1 vol. 
 
 No. 321. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHOKS IN THE CATALOGUE. 
 
 A 
 
 Abeken, Bernhard Rudolf. No. 266 
 Adler, L. No. 340. 
 Adler, E. No. 267. 
 d' Alton, Ed. No. 201. 
 Andersson, Johan. No. 61. 
 Arndt, Wilh. No. 125. 
 Auerbacb, S. No. 303. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacbarach, H. No. 59. 
 Bayer, Josef. No. 339. 
 Beck, Ferd. Ant. No. 65. 
 Belani, H. E. N. No. 284. 
 Bell, James. No. 163. 
 Bergedorf, Max. No. 66. 
 Berger, Alf. v. No 204. 
 Bernays, Micbael. No. 11. 232, 371. 
 Biedermann. Karl. No. 1, 67. 
 Biedermann, W. von. No. 155, 
 
 226,244, 260, 355, 356. 
 Binz, Carl. No. 68. 
 Birlinger, Anton. No. 68. 
 Bilkow. No. 238 
 Blancbet, F. No. 69. 
 Blaze, Henri. No. 57. 
 Bloemer, Friedricb. No. 194. 
 Blume, Ludwig. No. 283. 
 Boas, Eduard. No. 22. 
 Bottiger, Karl Aug. No. 288, 
 Bottiger, K. W. No. 288. 
 Brabm, Otto. No. 278a. 
 Bratranek, F. Tb. No. 202, 221, 
 
 234, 275. 
 Breitenbacb, Ludwig. No. 363. 
 Brill, W. G. No. 70. 
 Brockbaus, F. A. No. 290. 
 Burdacb, K. No. 374a. 
 Burkbardt, C. A. H. No. 247, 293. 
 
 Cabrerizo, Mariano de. No. 43. 
 Carlowitz, Baronne de. No. 243. 
 Carlyle, Tbos. No. 174, 377. 
 Carriere, Moritz. No. 271, 287. 
 Cludius, C. Ed. No. 71. 
 Coleridge, S. T. No. 384. 
 Corvinus, H. No. 26. 
 Courtbeaux, A. No. 215. 
 Cramer, Franz. No. 331. 
 Creizenacb, Tb. No. 231. 
 Creizenacb, Wilhelm. No. 72, 73. 
 
 Deinbardstein. No. 396. 
 Delitzscb, Franz. No. 296. 
 Devrient, Otto. No. 50. 
 Deycks, F. No. 74. 
 Dingelstedt, Franz. No. 51. 
 Dippold, H. K. No. 134. 
 Dorer, Edmund. No. 368. 
 Doring, Heinricb. No. 257, 281. 
 Downes, George. No. 322. 
 Du Bois-Reymond, Emil. No. 203. 
 Dumas, Alexandre. No. 59. 
 Diintzer, Heinricb. No. 1, 9, 75, 
 76, 242, 252, 273, 307, 312. 
 
 E 
 
 Eckardt, Julius. No. 301. 
 Eckermann, Job. Peter. No. 245, 
 
 290. 
 Egmont. No. 77. 
 Engel, Carl. No. 78. 
 Engelmann, Max. No. 79. 
 Enk, M. No. 80. 
 Eysell, G. H. No. 146. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS IN CATALOGUE. 
 
 211 
 
 Falk, Johannes. No. 246. 
 Falkson. No. 264. 
 Fertsch, Eugen. No. 343. 
 Filmore, Lewis. No. 55. 
 Fischer, Kuno. No. 81, 137, 147, 
 
 220. 
 Fischer M. Benjamin Gottlob. No. 
 
 37. 
 Fielitz, Wilhelm. No. 229, 338. 
 Fouque, Friedrich Baron de la 
 
 Motte. No. 323b. 
 Friinkel, Albert. No. 268. 
 Froitzheim, Dr. Joh. No. 261a. 
 
 263. 
 Fuss, J. D. No. 18. 
 
 Gaedertz, Karl Theodor. No. 270. 
 Gassner, Franz Ignatz. No. 23. 
 Geiger, Carl. No. 82. 
 Geiger, Dr. Ludwig. No. 345. 
 Glover, Friedrich. No. 334. 
 Gorres, J. No. 83. 
 Goschel, C. F. No. 84. 
 Gotthardi, W. G. No. 316. 
 Greene, Robert. No. 113. 
 Grimm, Herman. No. 240, 255, 
 
 354. 
 Grosse, Carl. No. 272. 
 Grlin, Albert. No. 85. 
 Guhrauer, G. E. No. 223. 
 
 H 
 
 Hacker, Ludwig. No. 274a. 
 Haiiner, Paul. No. 86, 183. 
 Hagen, A. No. 310a. 
 Hagen, Karl. No. 87. 
 Harnack, Otto. No. 213, 235, 364. 
 Hartwig, G. L. No. 128. 
 Haupt, Em. Fried. No. 19. 
 Hegel, G. W. F. No. 385. 
 Hehn, Victor. No. 365. 
 Hellen, Eduard von der. No. 187, 
 
 320. 
 Henle, E. No. 397. 
 Henkel, Hermann. No. 375. 
 Herbst. No. 139. 
 Hesse, August. No. 180. 
 Hesse. No. 241. 
 Hirzel, Heinrich. No. 224. 
 
 Hirzel, Ludwig. No. 217, 305, 348. 
 Hlawacek, Edward- No. 279. 
 Hoffmann, J. D. No. 88. 
 Holcroft, Thomas. No. 39. 
 Hollander, J. No. 342. 
 Horn, Moritz. No. 398. 
 Hosaeus, Wilhelm. No. 27. 
 Housse, Ludwig. No. 89. 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm von- No. 45. 
 
 Jacobi, Max. No. 222. 
 Jagemann. No. 42. 
 Jahn, Otto. No. 230, 237. 
 Jenisch, D. No. 175 
 Jung, Alexander. No. 176. 
 Jungmann, J. No. 44. 
 
 K 
 
 Kalischer, S. No. 1, 205, 208. 
 Keil, Richard. No. 269. 
 Keil, Robert. No. 269. 
 Kersten, Carl Thodor. No. 38. 
 Kieser, Dr. No. 140, 148. 
 Kis, Janos. No. 131. 
 Kleinert, P. No- 90. 
 Knebel-Doeberitz Hugo von. No. 
 
 298. 
 Knortz, Karl. No. 165, 344a. 
 Koberstein, A. No. 369. 
 Komaromy, Andor. No. 63. 
 Kopke, Ernst. No. 294. 
 Kriegk, G. L. No. 309. 
 Kurnik, Max. No. 379. 
 Kyle, WiUiam. No. 91. 
 
 Lacy, Alexandre No. 399. 
 Lancizolle, Ludwig von. No. 337, 
 
 349. 
 Lange, Ernst. No. 207. 
 Langguth, Adolf No. 328. 
 Lappenberg,J. M. No. 297. 
 Lasswitz, Emil. No. 92. 
 Laya, Alexandre. No. 58. 
 Lehmann, J. A. O. L. No. 374. 
 Lercheimer, Augustin. No. 68. 
 Lespoir, Alphonse de. No. 56. 
 Letteris, M. No. 93. 
 Levy, B. No. 34, 41. 
 Lewald, August. No. 308. 
 
212 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS IN CATALOGUE. 
 
 Lewes, George Henry. No. 253. 
 Lewitz, Friedrich. No. 149. 
 Leyser, J. No. 262. 
 Lichtenberger, Ernest. No. 29, 
 
 366. 
 Liszt, Franz. No. 390. , 
 Loeper, G. v. No. 1, 12, 13, 126, 
 
 225. J 
 
 Loewe, C. No. 94. 
 Lothholz G. No, 310b. 
 Lucius, Phil. Ferd. No. 261. 
 Lucke, Dr. No. 367 
 Ludecus W. No. 280. 
 Lyster, W. No. 252. 
 
 McLintock, K. No. 95. 
 
 Marlowe, Christ. No. 113. 
 
 Marmier, X. No. 376. 
 
 Martin. No. 24. 
 
 Masing, Woldemar. No. 25. 
 
 Mayer, Philipp. No. 380a. 
 
 Meding, Karl Heinrich. No. 210. 
 
 Meisner, J. No. 326. 
 
 Merckel, Garheb. No. 301. 
 
 Meyer, Carl. No. 216. 
 
 Meyer v. Waldeck, Friedrich. No. 
 
 184. 
 Mezieres, A. No. 256. 
 Minor, Jacob. No. 359, 373. 
 Moritz, K. P. No. 302, 303. 
 Moschkau, Alfred. No. 276. 
 Muff, Christian. No. 96. 
 Miiller, Carl Arthur. No. 400. 
 Miiller, H. No. 97. 
 Miiller, H. F. No. 141. 
 Miiller, Moritz. No. 332, 336. 
 
 N 
 
 Nefetzer, A. No. 304. 
 Neumeyer, Andr. No. 154. 
 Nicolai, Friedrich. No. 168. 
 Nissle, Julius. No. 197. 
 Noetel, R. No. 135. 
 N6lting,.Fr. Theod. No. 142. 
 Nowicki, F. No. 136. 
 
 Opzoomer, C. W. No. 338. 
 Ortlepp, Ernst. No. 401. 
 Oxenford, John. No. 249. 
 
 Palleske Emil. No. 295. 
 Papadopoulos, Joannes. No. 129. 
 Pasque, Ernst. No. 325. 
 Petzholdt, Julius. No. 98. 
 Peucer, Friedrich. No. 318. 
 Pinkerton, P.E. No. 307. 
 Porchat, Jacques. No. 214. 
 Posner, Max. No. 359. 
 Pratt, Dr. No. 158. 
 Prohle, Heinrich. No. 380. 
 Pudor, Carl Heinrich. No. 143. 
 
 Quincey, Thomas De. No. 258. 
 Quis. L. No. 21. 
 
 R 
 
 Radziwill, Fiirst. No. 54. 
 Rappaport, Moritz. No. 402. 
 Reckhng, M. No. 144. 
 Retzsch, Moritz. No. 99, 196. 
 Ribbeck, K. No. 319. 
 Richter, H. M. No. 164. 
 Rieger, M. No 100. 
 Riemer, Dr. Friedr. Wilh. No. 
 
 233, 236, 248. 
 Robert-tornow, Walter. No. 335. 
 RoUett, Hermann. No. 250 
 Rose, F. No. 102. 
 Rosenkranz, Karl. No. 357. 
 Rossler, Julius. No. 101. 
 Ruland, C. No. 195, 199. 
 Rydberg, Viktor. No, 62. 
 
 Sabell, Eduard W. No. 391. 
 Sauer, A. No. 273. 
 Schadow, Gottfried. No. 193. 
 Scherer, Wilhelm. No. 186, 359, 
 
 360. 
 Scherr, Johannes. No. 259. 
 Schlettwein, J. A. No. 170. 
 Schloenbach, Arnold. No. 313. 
 Schmidt, Erich. No. 48, 310, 359, 
 
 361, 362. 
 Schmidt, Oscar. No. 206. 
 Schnetger, Alexander. No. 103. 
 Schoebel, C. No. 104. 
 SchoU, Adolf. No. 229. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS IN CATALOGUE. 
 
 213 
 
 Schonborn, Carl. No. 105. 
 Schonhuth, OttmarF. H. No. 106. 
 Schorn, Th. No. 127. 
 Schroer, K. J. No. 47. 
 Schubarth, K. E. No. 107. 
 Schuchardt, Christian. No. 189, 
 
 211, 389. 
 Schwartzkopff, August. No. 108. 
 Schwarz, C. W. G. E. No. 145. 
 Sckell, Karl August Christian. 
 
 No. 278. 
 Semler, Christian. No. 182, 
 Seuffert, Bernhard. No. 49, 186. 
 Seyffert, Moritz. No. 20. 
 Simrock, Carl. No. 109. 
 Sintenis, F. No. 239. 
 Spielhagen, Friedrich. No. 110. 
 Springer, B. G. No, 286, 
 Springer, Eobert. No. 315. 
 Steck, R. No. 265. 
 Stern, Daniel. No. 370 
 Strehlke, Dr. Fr. No. 1. 
 Strieker, Wilhelm. No. 274, 372. 
 Suphan, Bernhard. No. 320, 321. 
 
 No. 13. 
 
 Tomlinson, C. No. 17, 28, 150. 
 Treumund, G. No. 317. 
 Tube, P. No. 111. 
 
 w 
 
 Wach§muth, Wilhelm. No. 314. 
 Wagner, Karl.' No. 300. 
 Wahle, Julius. Na 324. 
 Waldeck, see Meyer. 
 Ward, A. W. No. 113. 
 Weinhold, K. No. 299. 
 Weiss, J. J. No. 46. 
 Wieck. No. 177. 
 Wille, Ludwig. No. 166. 
 Winter, Golthard. No. 330. 
 Wittich, Dr. No. 151. 
 Wollheim, Dr. No. 52, 53, 114. 
 
 Zarncke, Friedrich. No. 251, 381. 
 Zianitzka, K. T. No. 285. 
 Ziemlich, Bernhard. No. 341. 
 Zirklaup, Friedrich. No. 153. 
 
 Anonymous. No. 40, 115, 116, 117, 
 118, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 
 167, 169, 170 171, 172, 179, 
 181, 277, 282, 311. 
 
 MACKIE AND COMPANY, LIMITED, PlUNTEllS, WARRINGTON. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 1, Title, read I. — Original Papers instead of /. — Reprints of 
 Papers. 
 
 Page 3, line 28, read that instead of me. 
 
 Page 10, line 18, read days instead of day. 
 
 Page 31, line 18, read Ilmenau instead of Ihmenau. 
 
 Page 49, line 15, read avenge instead of merge. 
 
 Page 55, line 14, read honett instead of honest. 
 
 Page 96, line 1, omit the second been. 
 
 Page 178, last line, read gloius instead of groics. 
 
 Page 184, line 34, read Tomlinson instead of Tomlison. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books ate subject to immediate recalL 
 
 PBRARY 
 
 U£!B 
 
 APR fl19P 2 
 
 ^!^ 
 
 vP 
 
 t^ 
 
 ^A 
 
 ^'^ 
 
 LD 21A-50m-3,'62 
 (C7097830)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of Californij 
 
 Berkeley 
 
663039 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY 
 
'<fimm>. 
 
 sftki 
 
 
 liiM)^.